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This was a daring, even risky project for The N&O, involving a balancing act between possible damage to the young people portrayed so starkly and the public benefit of raising consciousness about a huge but little-discussed societal problem. Yes, the kids and their mothers gave "informed consent," but do people unaccustomed to dealing with the media really appreciate what they're consenting to? Especially youngsters? One of the young men complained afterward to McDonald, "Hey man, my girlfriend says you made me look like a thug."

Weigh that against the broader community awareness raised. The paper received a lot of e-mails and calls in response, mostly appreciative, some negative. The positive messages from teachers, parents and others asked how they could help the task force address the problem. The negative were -- let's call it what it is -- racist: "Blacks in general do most of the crime and yet thay (sic) are a minority. Blacks are more violet (sic) and always carry a chip on their shoulder." The saddest message I saw was from a father asking for help with his wayward (white) son. "I know if he continues on the path he is on, he is looking at menial jobs the rest of his life, or prison."

The project wasn't complete. In focusing on the young men, it gave only perfunctory attention to causes of and solutions to the problem of too many young minority males going to prison. (Black and Latino men make up 13 percent of North Carolina's population but nearly 64 percent of prisoners in the state.) That's the "institutional" story that the team chose not to do and, as Stepp acknowledges, there is serious reporting still to be done. "The part of the story yet to be written is the solutions," she said. "The N&O will have failed if we don't come back and follow this in a real solutions kind of way."

As for this work, it's a close call as to whether real human beings were exploited for the purposes of an important story. Given the conscientious attempt to fully inform the participants, and given the broader ripples that the stories generated in the public mind, I'll side with The N&O on this one and say the risk to individuals was worth the potential benefit to society -- and, maybe, to these teenagers. As Stepp says, "I really hope for each of these young men that something will happen in their lives that they don't end up being statistics."

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