media maven / By Marcy Burstiner

Crime scenes

(July 5, 2007)  If there is anything that sets the Eureka Reporter and Times-Standard apart from each other it’s how each covers crime in Humboldt County.

Crime coverage is considered bread and butter to most newspapers as it’s the one thing that tends to interest all readers, regardless of what neighborhood they live in or their age, gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic status. Just consider the popularity of the TV shows “Law and Order” and “CSI”.

If you read only the Eureka Reporter for your news, you’d get the idea that we live in a crime-ridden county. If you read only the Times-Standard you’d get the notion that very little crime occurs.

How’s that possible?

It’s all about what stories a newspaper decides to cover and which stories they pass over to cover something else. First off, newspapers can’t cover everything that happens, even in a small town. Just look at the Arcata Eye.Kevin Hoover’s weekly always looks as if the pages will split open if he tries to stuff one more news item.

But I get frustrated with the two dailies because they each go about covering crime and the courts in a superficial manner. Now, before all you bloggers with too much time on your hands go ballistic on me, here’s the disclosure you want to see: My husband works as a deputy district attorney and he used to be a criminal defense attorney. You’d assume I’d be particularly interested in the courts. But tell me, how many wives of insurance salesmen are all that interested in insurance?

Here’s what both papers miss in their coverage or lack of coverage of crime and criminal justice in our county: The stories behind the crimes. The people involved in or affected by them. At their heart, crime stories are human interest stories.

Readers feel directly connected to stories about crime. Why? Because we have all been victims in the past or we fear being victims in the future. When we see people accused of crimes, there’s the feeling of “There but for the grace of God we go.” And if you’ve ever had a child, you can’t help thinking about the parents of both the crime victim and the criminal; both represent the deepest fears we have for our child’s future.

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