Shame on you.
We want to know he was caught, but that’s it.
This kid is just a spectacle used to sell more papers.
Those aren’t my words. They’re taken from reader comments posted Monday on HeraldNet.com in response to news of Colton Harris-Moore’s arrest.
News — that’s my word.
Long before any of us ever heard of a “Barefoot Bandit,” years before boats went missing and planes crashed, news of Camano Island burglaries was reported in The Herald. Over two years, the saga went global, ending with Sunday’s capture of the teen in the Bahamas.
It’s still local news.
Covering it neither condones crime nor glamorizes the suspect.
As much as I’m used to reading comments — both criticism and approval — on my columns, I was mystified by negative reactions to Herald reporter Jackson Holtz’s comprehensive coverage of the capture. On a Sunday in July, reporters and editors (I wasn’t one of them) worked long hours to make sure online readers had up-to-the-hour details on a huge breaking news story.
Some are sick of reading the name Colton Harris-Moore in the paper. We all get kind of sick of just seeing his name. But how can anyone say the story isn’t news? Blaming the messenger makes no sense to me.
“This is a local story, and local people are affected by it,” said Peggy Watt, an assistant professor of journalism at Western Washington University. Watt said she has often heard the comment that some story was covered “just to sell newspapers.”
“I don’t know of a single reporter who sits down to write a story thinking ‘This is going to sell the paper,’ ” Watt said Tuesday. “That’s not why journalists write stories.”
Like every other commercial news organization, we’re a business.
We’re not, as one online comment said, “the Everett Enquirer.”
“Newspapers, TV stations and other mass media that serve big, diverse audiences are always balancing the competing wants and needs of people,” said Randall Beam, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Washington. “For every Herald reader who complains that you’re writing too much about Harris-Moore, there’s undoubtedly another out there who thinks you haven’t written enough.
Harris-Moore is suspected of going on a two-year string of crimes that crossed nine states and reached into two foreign countries. “That’s not gossip,” Beam said. “That’s news.”
University of Washington Professor Roger Simpson, who specializes in journalism ethics, noted that readers wouldn’t have posted comments on the Harris-Moore article had they not read it. “They are paying attention,” he said.
He sees in the Harris-Moore story an archetype, a tale of a certain sort of maverick destined to be part of Northwest lore. “We as human beings are fascinated by people who break the mold,” Simpson said. “We’re still reliving the story of the guy who took over the 727, D.B. Cooper — and Harry Truman, the guy who stayed at Mount St. Helens. We’re fascinated by these maverick characters.”
Beam puts it this way: “It’s a good story.”
“It has a strong protagonist. It has action. It has conflict. It has mystery,” he said. “Journalism is, in part, telling interesting nonfiction stories.”
Don’t like it?
Watt has a simple solution: “Then don’t read it.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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