It's News When We Get Around To it

Last Friday evening two little kids were shot not far from my home. I headed over to the scene, made a few pictures and wrote a little about the fact that the story didn't make the newspapers Saturday. Or Sunday. Or Monday. One TV station mentioned it and one aired a decent report. I figured the Star-Ledger of Newark would get around to it some time. The day of the shooting the Ledger published a story with photos about the residents of the building where the shooting occurred protesting against drug dealers a day earlier. Or was that anti-drug dealer rally two days before?

Either way, I guess reporting a story three days late is better than never.

The Ledger reporter did do a decent job of rounding up what happened in Tuesday's piece.

A teenager was beaten and slashed in the face and two children were shot in the leg in related attacks at an Elizabeth apartment complex that occurred minutes apart and just two days after a rally in which tenants decried a lack of security.

"...just two days after a rally in which tenants decried a lack of security. " ?

Well, the captions under the photos that ran with the first story about the protest described the event as "a rally calling attention to problems at Oakwood Plaza in Elizabeth yesterday."

But in the article the rally took place "Wednesday evening," a day before "yesterday."

So, never mind breaking spot news stories, the Ledger can't get words and photos of a staged rally in print the next morning.

When I worked on daily newspapers, they tended to deliver the news the day after it happened unless it was a feature, an investigative piece or was way past deadline. Both events at Oakwood Plaza happened before any daily’s deadline. Back in the day, if a fire or shooting or accident or drug bust took place before deadline, it was in the paper the next day. If only a few details were available, it was a brief.

By chance I bumped into the Ledger reporter today and couldn't help but mention seeing Friday's news in Tuesday's newspaper.

"Blame the Elizabeth Police," she said. "They are notorious for not releasing information after business hours."

So there you go. It is the cops' fault that the shooting of two children didn’t make the paper for three days. It has nothing to do with laziness or a lack of competition.

Ironic ain't it, that the Star-Ledger won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting?