Just when a journalist thinks there is nothing new under the sun, something presents itself.
Decades in this business have taught me this: People are interested first in what impacts their individual lives. If they
hear a gunshot in the night, they look at the next morning’s newspaper to find an explanation. If their local grocery store
goes out of business, they thumb through the Business pages to find out why.
Those reader expectations drive some of the coverage in The Salt Lake Tribune.
How the paper fulfills those expectations — sometimes well, sometimes not — gets judged by each reader with every
morning’s edition.
Occasionally, one individual story will reveal an aberration. Such was the case with a brief on a shooting incident at the
end of last year.
Let’s face it, anybody can turn a cucumber into a pickle, but nobody can reverse the process. Once that vegetable has
been bathed in brine, its taste is briny forever.
That’s the underlying principle behind a rule at The Tribune about naming suspects in crimes:
“Names of people arrested on felony charges normally are not published until they are formally charged, except when
one of the following conditions exists: 1) the suspect is a major newsmaker or a top law enforcement officer; 2) the
suspect is a fugitive, a convict, or on parole; 3) there is absolutely no dispute that the suspect committed the crime, his/her
identity is undisputed and the act has regional impact; 4) when a demonstrable and overriding public good would be
served by naming the suspect; 5) when the editor so determines unique circumstances dictate an extraordinary exception.”
In general, The Tribune avoids initially naming victims in smaller crime reports. When victims are named, reporters are
careful to check background information. Those guidelines dictate coverage in most crime reports, but now and then a
strange case pops up.
I received a phone call shortly after the first of the year from a woman who identified herself as the sister of a man shot
on Dec. 29, and airlifted to the hospital for treatment. In The Tribune, the victim was identified by police as a gang
member, but his name was not used.
The woman said her brother had been fired from his job and was having other problems because — even though he
was not named in the story — he had been identified by those people he knew. How? Because, she said, he was the only
man in the Salt Lake Valley who was shot and transported by helicopter to the hospital on Dec. 29.
The man was not a gang member, but an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire of a gang-related incident,
the woman said.
The supervising editor, Sheila McCann, and her reporter, Matt Canham, checked with the police agency that provided
the original information and found the man apparently is not a gang member. A correction was run Jan. 11.
Previously, I would have thought the chances of a person being identified from the vague report in the paper were nil. I
was wrong; the stars lined up in such a way that had significant impact on the man’s life.
Most people who practice this craft understand the stakes are high when suspects are named. They can be equally high
when victims can be identified — even if the identification is not widespread.
Cyber Talk
Think the folks who run this newspaper are nuts? Then clear your afternoon schedule on Wednesday and fire up the
computer, because that’s when you can take your best shot or ask your most serious question.
Utah Online, the cyberspace arm of The Salt Lake Tribune, kicks off a new way for the public to talk to the newspaper
staff this Wednesday with a cyberchat featuring Tribune Editor James E. Shelledy. The session will begin at 3 p.m. Go to
www.sltrib.com and follow the directions for getting to the chat room.
Other Tribune staffers set for Wednesday cyberchats are columnist Holly Mullen on Jan. 29, Asst. Managing Editor
Chris Magerl on Feb. 5, Managing Editor Tim Fitzpatrick on Feb. 12, Reader Advocate (moi) Connie Coyne on Feb. 19
and Asst. Managing Editor Terry Orme on Feb. 26. Features staffers and columnists will chat on Friday, starting with
Rolly & Wells this Friday. Sportswriters will chat on Tuesdays, starting with Gordon Monson on Jan. 28.
