By now, I should be used to it. If I’ve heard this refrain once in the 12 years I’ve been readers representative, I’ve heard it a gazillion times. “Since when is Tijuana part of San Diego?”
Some readers are truly puzzled when stories appear in the local section of the newspaper that carry a dateline from Tijuana or elsewhere in Baja California. Others are hostile. The Union-Tribune is beginning to be known as the Tijuana Times, wrote a reader who did not mean it as a compliment.
Her antipathy was provoked by a story Feb. 25 that appeared on Page 1 of the local section. The headline said: “Major storm bears down on S.D. area.” Two color photos accompanied the article about the powerful Pacific storm that was expected to hit the region that night. The photos showed flooding in the Colonia Alamar section of Tijuana the previous day. The caption said the neighborhood was partially evacuated “in advance of the next storm.”
The reader said she was disturbed because she feared tourists visiting San Diego might assume that the city has neighborhoods with muddy streets that look like the ones shown in the photos. The photos, she wrote, didn’t exactly enhance tourism in the city. “This is one case where the editors would have done better to show pictures from either Orange, Riverside or Imperial counties in the local section.” And then the kicker. “At least those counties are in the United States.”
Wrote another reader: “If I wanted to know what’s going on in Tijuana, I’d subscribe to a Mexican newspaper.”
The Union-Tribune’s mission is to cover the region. And anyone who thinks that Tijuana is not part of the San Diego area should look at a map that shows the entire region — and doesn’t stop at the border. Minnesota has the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul. This region has its own twin cities, San Diego and Tijuana. Think Oceanside and Carlsbad; La Mesa and El Cajon.
Yes, there’s an artificial border that separates San Diego and Tijuana, but even the border fences cannot erase the fact that environmental concerns in one city are the environmental concerns of the other.
Although some residents of San Diego County never cross the border to the south, for some it is part of their lives. There are many people who are equally at home in either city.
“Both geographically and in a socio-economic sense, Tijuana is part of the San Diego region,” said Todd Merriman, senior editor for news. “It is closer to downtown than say, Oceanside, and a great many of our readers spend time there each day, whether for business, entertainment, cultural or family reasons.”
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It didn’t take much to read between the lines. An Associated Press article March 1 said the relative of a family in Mississippi missing since Valentine’s Day had been arrested on drug charges and firearms violations, and “authorities said other charges were expected.”
The story about the arrest of Earnest Lee Hargon noted that he was “an adopted cousin” of one of the missing family members. That’s what got the attention of Alice Whitted, who said two of her grandchildren came to her family through adoption.
Whitted said pointing out that Hargon was adopted was inflammatory and was not pertinent to the story. To her, pointing out he was adopted was akin to pointing out someone’s race when it has nothing to do with the issue.
The information that he was an “adopted cousin” was also included in a secondary headline. Does the newspaper note when someone is a biological family member? she asked.
The story was written by an Associated Press reporter. A story the following day said that the bodies of family members had been found in a wooded area and that Hargon had been charged with murder. Again, the story noted that he was adopted and that one of the victims had recently inherited property from Hargon’s father. The story noted that the accused was not included in the will.
The way the story was worded, however, was confusing. It says: “Earnest Lee Hargon, Charles Hargon’s adopted son, was not included in the will. …
“It could be a possible motive, but it’s not the only one,” the story quoted a spokesman as saying.
Was the reporter trying to say Hargon’s father left him out of the will because he was adopted? I doubt it. So, why include it?
At the time the stories were written, there was no indication that adoption was a factor in the case. The newspaper’s stylebook says: “It is seldom necessary, except when adoption is a point of the story, to identify a child as adopted. The law makes no distinction between children born into a family and those adopted into it; need we?”
