An interview with ProPublica’s Hannah Dreier, the reporter behind  ProPublica’s “A Betrayal”

By Kristen Doerer

While a blizzard swirled outside, ProPublica reporter Hannah Dreier sat in the audience of a high school anti-bullying fashion show. Hired last summer to cover immigration, Dreier had driven out to Brentwood High School in suburban Long Island, New York, to try to talk to teachers and administrators about a student named Henry, whose attempt to escape from the gang MS-13 by becoming an informant had instead resulted in his detainment and threatened deportation back to El Salvador.

In particular, Dreier wanted to talk to the district superintendent. But over the past two years, five students had been killed by MS-13. Media coverage of the school had been intense. Nobody had been talking. The time ticked by slowly. She wondered how she was going to make it home.

Staying until the end of the fashion show turned out to be worthwhile, and Dreier was able to buttonhole the superintendent and later speak to Henry’s teachers, reporting that made all the difference in shaping her blockbuster story, “A Betrayal,” which was jointly published in New York Magazine and ProPublica at the beginning of April.

Dreier has written movingly about the experience of reporting the story, describing how Henry gave her more access than she’d ever been given before even as his position was about as precarious as it could be. But there’s much more we can learn from her experience.

In a conversation that spanned over an hour, I spoke with Dreier on a wide range of issues including what it was like to report on a teenager in such a vulnerable position, what education journalists might learn from her experience, and how the luxury of time and her own persistent reporting reversed her initial assumptions about the school’s culpability for Henry’s fate.

The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

a betrayal

Dreier’s story includes a written narrative, a video short, and other related materials. 

Kristen Doerer: How much access did you get to the teachers and school administrators?

Hannah Dreier: We talked to almost everybody who interacted with him in the different scenes we described. We talked to a bunch of his teachers and to the superintendent, who was formerly the principal of his high school. The teachers were very nervous about having their names in the story. I don’t name them.

KD: Why were they nervous?

HD: I think everybody’s just scared because there’s this gang that is killing people with machetes. And that’s totally new for everyone. They were also a little scared because the school has gotten a lot of negative press. The school sort of locked down on media. So I felt really lucky that they agreed to collaborate with us.

KD: What happened when you finally spoke with people from the school?

HD: The teachers and the administrators all seemed genuinely surprised about what had happened to Henry. I think their impression was that if a student agreed to talk to law enforcement and help law enforcement, law enforcement would in turn protect the student.

KD: Were they more willing to speak to you as a result of this particular situation?

HD: It wasn’t an easy process. I think they told me that they wouldn’t speak to me like half a dozen times. And they never said that they would. What ended up happening was I found a public event that was happening at the school. It was happening on the day there was this crazy snowstorm. So I drove out in this snowstorm, it took me hours to get out to Long Island, because the roads were all messed up, and when I showed up, again, everyone said, “We’re not going to talk to you. Go home.”

I stayed through the whole fashion show, and at the end, it was 9:30, and I was thinking about how I was going to have to now drive home in the snowstorm. I just buttonholed the superintendent, and initially he said, we won’t talk, but then he ended up talking to me for an hour, and he pulled in school board members. The superintendent ended up being really helpful and forthcoming and filled in some gaps and helped us with a lot of fact-checking. Everyone’s initial response was ‘no,’ but then people agreed to talk in the end.

I think they told me that they wouldn’t speak to me like half a dozen times. And they never said that they would. Everyone’s initial response was ‘no,’ but then people agreed to talk in the end.

KD: How aggressive would you say you were in getting in touch with the teachers? Did you ever worry that you were being too aggressive?

HD: It was tricky. It’s hard to know how aggressive to be with school officials, especially with teachers. When there’s an official that’s a target of an investigation, any amount of aggression is sort of OK, and is required, because you want to make sure people have a chance to defend themselves or to correct things you’re saying about them. With teachers it’s hard, because they’re sort of private individuals and I didn’t want to bother them too much. But I thought it was really important to double-check the things Henry was telling me, because the story seemed so insane when he first told me.

KD: Was time also a factor with your reporting?

HD: Yeah, exactly. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to go to ProPublica, I just had a huge luxury of time that I don’t think most reporters have. I sympathize with the school [for feeling coverage has been superficial], but I also sympathize with those reporters because usually the assignment is ‘Go out, see what you can get from the school in a week or two, and then write up the story.’ What ProPublica said to me was ‘See what you can get.’ There’s no time limit at all.

betrayal mishandled

A line from Dreier’s piece about how everyone involved in Henry’s case mishandled the situation

KD: How much of a role did the school play in protecting or exposing Henry?

HD: When I first talked to Henry, my read had been that the school had probably sold him out. On the face of it, it seemed to be this huge betrayal. And I was surprised that Henry himself was much more angry and felt much more betrayed by police. The teachers and the officials had thought they were doing the best thing for Henry, and they hadn’t understood what sending him to the police would mean for him.

KD: Where do the FBI and ICE come in?

HD: The school had this school resource officer whose job was to sort of to keep an eye on things in school and feed the police department intelligence that could be helpful. So Henry went to the school and said that he was afraid the gang was going to kill him if he didn’t participate in this murder spree. The school saw that as something that would trigger a mandatory reporting clause. From the school’s perspective, his life was in danger, and they had to go to the police, because what if he left the school and then got killed? And it turned out the school had known this whole time that his life was under threat? And so the school connected him with this school resource officer and the school resource officer connected Henry with the FBI gang task force.

I just would never have known [the real story] if I hadn’t staked out their school events and sat through their school board meetings to get to talk to these people.

KD: What do you think are the lessons for other journalists from your experience?

HD: For me, it really just speaks to the importance of talking to sources even when it’s a school district that’s completely shut down and keeps telling you they won’t comment. My first understanding had been the school just callously did not care at all about this student, and it turns out that was totally wrong; it just seems like they had no idea. I just would never have known [the real story] if I hadn’t staked out their school events and sat through their school board meetings to get to talk to these people.

KD: Was there anything particular about covering a high school story that stands out?

HD: I tried to be really careful to never violate any kind of school campus trespassing rules. I really didn’t want to get thrown out of the school — that was one of my main fears — so when school was in session, I never set foot beyond the front office. I never sneaked anywhere, because I feel like if I did that even once, I would have completely destroyed all trust for the rest of the time I was trying to report on this.

KD: How else did talking to the teachers shape the story?

HD: We wouldn’t have been able to describe what Henry was like without a help of a lot of his teachers, who spoke without using any of their names. But because we were able to speak to enough of them, we ended up having a pretty good picture of what he had been like as a student and what he looked like from the outside, from the eyes of his teachers. That was so helpful in trying to make him into a real character in this story, and a three-dimensional one, too. I mean, they don’t say he’s a great student — getting straight A’s and winning all of these academic awards — but this was a kid that was trying to get his life back on track for sure.

propublica betrayhal hannah dreier

To read more about Dreier’s experience reporting the story, and the immigration hearing that followed, read her reflection: What It Was Like Reporting on a Teenager Marked for Death.

KD: Education reporters face some unique challenges getting access to information because sources are often minors and districts sometimes invoke FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and other privacy laws. Did you run into those?

HD: Well, I wanted to get his school records to confirm dates and as another way to fact-check what he was telling us. And I tried a few ways to get those, but the school said no. I thought I could get Henry to maybe sign a release, but in the end, they were not about to do that, which is too bad. Now I’ve seen his school records and his discipline records, and there’s just a lot of great color in there that I would have liked to use. I just had to report around the school records. I’m not an education reporter, and I was really focused on trying to make a case person to person for why people should share their memories of Henry, so I didn’t ever make any legalistic argument or any real reference to policy. I didn’t want to bring any of that up, because I suspected policy would not be in my favor, and I didn’t want to put anyone in the mind of thinking what they legally could disclose to me.

KD: What did you learn about how immigrant kids experience American schools that might be helpful to other reporters?

HD: I was talking to Henry almost every other day from jail, and he kept asking me to talk to his teachers; he kept giving me the names, especially this one English teacher. I think he still thinks of her as a second mother, even though speaking to her is what triggered this whole journey to spending nine months in a detention center. I think that like a lot of immigrant kids, he really trusted the school, and he saw the school as sort of the place that could connect him to other resources and the place that was going to help him settle into life on Long Island. The school had gotten a lot of bad press, but for Henry, the school was a safe and wonderful place, especially before the gang identified him. It was a place he could go and feel safe and feel like he was starting on a path to a brighter future. I think that helped me with the teachers, to go and say, “Henry asked me to talk to you.”

There wasn’t a way to write this story in a way that would humanize Henry and really show what had happened to him but not reveal so many details of his identity.

KD: Did you get any pushback on the story considering Henry’s vulnerable position?

HD: Personally, I was very worried about the additional danger I’d be putting Henry in. There wasn’t a way to write this story in a way that would humanize Henry and really show what had happened to him but not reveal so many details of his identity. But we decided that in the end that Henry been really clear about wanting to get this story out there. At some point, you have to let people decide for themselves what kind of risks they want to take and whether they want their stories told. This is so unusual, but we gave him a chance right before the story ran to take it all back basically. We also put an editor’s note at the bottom of the story explaining a little of this.

KD: There was one line in your story that really stuck out to me. It was: “MS-13 was like any other bunch of bored and anxious and hormonal teenagers at school, only with machetes.” I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit more about. What was it like reporting on these this story about high school boys?

HD: I read through years and years of his chats, and they’re just so teenage. I was just shocked by that. Again and again, they’re talking mostly about girls who they have crushes on or taking the Regents exam — this standardized test in New York. But then interspersed with them are these conversations about murder. I wanted to try to convey a little bit of that very strange juxtaposition of silly teenage stuff and deadly serious gang [stuff].

Again and again, they’re talking mostly about girls who they have crushes on or taking the Regents exam — this standardized test in New York. But then interspersed with them are these conversations about murder.

KD: In your latest update on Henry, you mention that some of the teachers and officials you spoke with are testifying at his next hearing on May 22. What are the teachers and administrators doing now to help Henry?

HD: Henry was on track to be given an order of deportation at the start of April, but at the latest hearing, everybody had clearly read the article, and there were copies of New York Magazine around the courtroom. Basically what happened was the judge punted and said he didn’t want to decide this until he heard from a source list of people who spoke for the story. So he listed those people off — the school officials he wanted to hear from, the police officials he wanted to hear from — and he gave Henry’s lawyer basically two months to get those people rounded up. And it wasn’t hard. Within a few weeks, his lawyer had agreements to testify from basically everyone the judge wants to hear from, and a lot of those people are teachers and administrators.

To read Dreier’s amazing story, go here

Kristen Doerer is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C. You can follow her at @k2doe.

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