I received a call from a very nice lady today who wanted to let me know
that she thought we erred by not putting the story on the death of a Glendale police
officer on A1 of our Tuesday Tribune.I explained the Tribune’s mission and how that shapes our decisions. But she stuck to her guns, saying the decision should have revolved around a matter of respect for the men and women in uniform who risk their lives for our safety.I respect the caller. She was civil and at least politely allowed me to explain our decision. We could agree to disagree. I also respect law enforcement officers, and I know from a multiple-part series we did last year just how hard that our East Valley departments work to find high caliber people to protect us and our property.That being said, I occasionally receive questions or criticism that indicate to me that some readers and nonreaders don’t understand the Tribune’s mission or want us to be something else.In a nutshell, our primary mission is to cover East Valley news and information and to host news and information about the East Valley. Our Scottsdale edition is focused on stories of particular interest to the north East Valley.When Glendale officer Anthony John Holly was shot, we didn’t send a team of reporters to the West Valley. In fact we relied on an Associated Press report on the shooting and apprehension of the suspect. When we learned that the suspect had had a run-in with Mesa police in 2002, one of our crime reporters hopped on the story, which we published on Thursday.When the shooting story broke early Monday, we immediately put it on the Tribune’s Web site where it was prominently displayed throughout the day. The story, of course, was on TV most of the day also. By the time we were ready to publish, we didn’t have anything that hadn’t already been on Web sites for 24 hours and on TV. We put the story on A5, but we also gave it a place on A1 by making it our third from the top story summary in our "60-second Trib" column. We wanted to make sure it wasn’t missed.So the factors that come to bear on our decisions for where we put a story include: Its geographical setting and timeliness. Is it in or about the East Valley? Can we provide information in the print edition that is current and advances the story or is it mainly a rehash of what we and others reported online or on TV for several hours?A similar situation occurred last week when local radio entertainer Bruce Jacobs went on a rant about our not having a story about a stabbing in Maryvale that resulted in the hospitalization of a former Army Ranger. The suspect is an illegal. (I don’t know these facts for sure, because I never did see anything on the wire, nor did our police reporters have any information on the stabbing.) I’ve lived in the East Valley for nearly 15 years, but I’ve never been to Maryvale. I even had to ask one of my colleagues where it was. I didn’t know where it was because it’s a long way from our coverage area. We have enough work on our hands keeping up with the violence in the East Valley.I think if I had to work Mr. Jacobs’ early hours, I would go to work in a bad mood every day, too. But I don’t think I would shout and carry on as much as he does. If you want to listen, we’ve put the sound track on my blog just before this one. It may require you to download Quicktime to listen. He’s quite an entertainer; it will be worth the effort.I think Mr. Jacobs might have sparked a call from a very angry lady (I ultimately learned she lives in north Phoenix; so I doubt she is a reader) who accused me of coddling illegals. Why, she declared, we are even afraid to use the word "illegal."While she ripped into me, I turned to my computer and pulled up an A1 Tribune story from the Thursday Feb. 15 edition and I read lead-in headline to her:"Arizona taxpayers spend up to $1.2 billion to educate children of illegal immigrants," the headline said. The setting for the story was in the Mesa school system, which is heavily burdened by the influx of the children of illegals, as we reported in a major award-winning series last year. Needless to say, the story would not have been printed if were trying to somehow shelter illegal immigrants. It’s a funny thing about how some people react when their entire thesis has just been blown out of the water. The lady insisted I didn’t get her point. She’s right. I still don’t. Come to think about it, I didn’t get an early morning nod of the head or congratulations from Mr. Jacobs. Maybe he’s hiding the story because it undermines his thesis. Or maybe he’s coddling illegal immigrants, protecting them from bad press??
