Bigger Isn’t Always Better
by Al Diamon
Overkill: The MaineToday Media newspapers are currently in the midst of a massive four-day series of reports on why so many confrontations between law enforcement officers and people suffering from mental illness end in fatal shootings. It’s a worthy subject for investigation, and the initial stories on Dec. 9 were certainly enlightening.
This is a serious problem that demands attention from the public and action by government officials, who’ve been lax in making sure police were properly trained to deal with these situations.
But having devoted three-and-a-half pages to multiple aspects of the matter on the first day, was there really anything left to be said? MaineToday’s editors seemed to think so. On Dec. 10, they filled another two-and-a-half pages with additional examples, reactions and case studies – none of which included much in the way of fresh information. And there are still two more days of this stuff to come.
I recognize that this is traditionally a slow time of the year for news. It makes sense for MTM to have planned ahead to produce something of consequence to fill up whatever space isn’t being devoted to heartwarming holiday features. It also makes sense to exercise some restraint when it comes to bombarding readers with similar facts over and over.
After six full pages of this stuff, there’s too much repetition and too little justification for running the same sidebar boxes on consecutive days, accompanying articles that differ only in minor details from what’s already been published. Doing that makes me suspicious that this entire project has less to do with informing the public of a serious problem and more to do with impressing the judges in the upcoming rounds of journalism contests.
Because everybody knows really long stories have the best chance of winning.
Even if nobody ever reads them.
Underkill: So busy were Maine journalists in preparing their contest applications and videoing people cutting Christmas trees that they all seem to have missed the death of an important figure in business and politics. Carlton Day Reed, former president of the state Senate and co-founder of a major construction company, died on Dec. 8. While his family supplied an obituary to several daily papers, not one of them ran a story on his career and accomplishments.
Maybe that’s because there’s nobody left in any of those newsrooms with any institutional memory.
From Russia with cancer: Ed King, the founder, publisher and editor of the West End News, has returned to Portland after a brief exile in Russia. King emigrated a few weeks ago after his wife got a job teaching English in Volgograd, but shortly after they sold all their possessions and emigrated, he discovered he had cancer.
According to a story in the Portland Press Herald, King’s Russian doctor recommended he return to the United States, even though he has no health insurance here. His condition is described by his son as “very serious.”
King’s friends – and he made a lot of them in more than a decade of publishing his quirky neighborhood newspaper – have set up fundraisers. Anyone wishing to help can call 221-3511 or go to www.gofundme.com/help-ed-and-liz.
Back in the big chair: Bangor TV station WVII announced late last week that it’s hired Craig Colson, former backup anchor at rival WABI, as its new anchor and news director.
Colson will fill one of the openings that resulted from the much-publicized on-air resignations of the perennial third-place station’s previous co-anchors.
Al Diamon can be emailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
