The Crime-Solving Kid in 'Home Before Dark' Is Based On a Real-Life 9-Year-Old Journalist
Apple TV+'s new crime series Home Before Dark follows a 9-year-old journalist named Hilde (Brooklynn Price), who is solving a mysterious death in her town that connects to her father's own past. And while the central crime in the 10-episode series is fictional, its central character is inspired by a real child reporter named Hilde Lysiak, who made national news for her journalistic integrity.
Like the character in the show, the real Lysiak founded the newspaper Orange Street News. Lysiak created the paper in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania in 2014 when she was 9 years old and moved it with her when her family relocated to Patagonia, Arizona. The newspaper began as it does in the show—a family venture in crayon—but has since evolved into a full fledged print and digital operation. Lysiak’s interest in crime reporting began when she was very young and her father would take her in to his work at the New York Daily News newsroom.
Lysiak first made headlines herself in April of 2016, when she broke the news of a local murder in Selinsgrove. While at the police station following up on a vandalism case she was reporting, Lysiak overheard whispers of a violent murder a few blocks from her home. She went to the scene before quickly biking home to report the news with the help of her father. The piece: "EXCLUSIVE: MURDER ON NINTH STREET!” ran online, and features a short video of Lysiak at the scene, as well as quotes from both neighbors and police.
After Lysiak’s reporting, commenters on the Facebook page of Orange Street News expressed dismay at the 9-year-old “pretending to be a reporter” and covering such a serious crime. Frustrated by this, Lysiak made a YouTube video in response, in which she reads the comments aloud. “I am disgusted that this cute little girl thinks she is a real journalist. What happened to tea parties?," one reads. “Nine-year-old girls should be playing with dolls, not trying to be reporters,” she reads another. Lysiak responds to the criticism, telling the commenters: “If you want me to stop covering news, then you get off your computers and do something about the news. There, is that cute enough for you?”
“When I got all of the criticism, I knew it was a part of journalism but it confused me a little because these people weren't attacking me for my accuracy. My story was 100 percent accurate," she later told Forbes. "They were attacking me for things like my age or gender, things I had no control over. I realized it's just stupid noise and part of being a reporter is getting criticism for what you do, but you just shouldn't let it affect you.”
Lysiak made national headlines again in February of 2019, when she was stopped by the town marshal Joseph Patterson as she was researching a story in Patagonia, Arizona. He asked if she was taping him, claiming "if you put my face on the Internet, it's against the law in Arizona.” Lysiak confronted him, asked what she was doing that was illegal, and posted the footage on YouTube as well as on the Orange Street News website. In response, mayor Andrea Wood apologized to Lysiak: “The governing body for the town of Patagonia would like to apologize for the First Amendment rights violation inflicted upon Hilde Lysiak, a young reporter in our community. We are sorry Hilde. We encourage and respect your continued aspiration as a successful reporter. We believe and fully support the constitutional right to freedom of speech in the public sector.”
Hilde Lysiak is now 13 years old and is the youngest member of the Society of Professional Journalists as well as the youngest person in American history to deliver a commencement speech. She’s already co-authored a Scholastic book series Hilde Cracks the Case along with her father based on her life, as well as won a Junior Zenger Award for Press Freedom in 2019.
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