Daily front-page presence too much

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, June 24, 2004

I’ve been increasingly disappointed with your ongoing coverage of the Burkheimer trial.

All of us realize that this was a tragic death and its commission is unforgiveable. However, was it worth front page display day after day? I don’t think so.

As usual, your assigned reporters were excellent, but it soon reached the ad nauseum point – repetitive aspects of an essentially dysfunctional family – the victim being a high school dropout and apparently living in the fast lane, divorced parents. This is not the typical bedrock Snohomish County family we’ve heard about in the past, and yet they continue to receive high-intensity coverage, which surely other victim families have deserved as much, if not more.

The time your experienced reporters spent covering the minutae of the Burkheimer family’s emotions was, in my opinion, largely wasted. It would have been much more substantive to have read about the grief and emotions of local families whose son, daughter or relative in the military had been killed serving our country during the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To portray the emotions and feelings of the surviving spouse, children, mother, father, aunts and uncles who have been left behind when a military victim has met death while serving his or her country would be both enlightening and sobering, and quite different from endless repetition of the Burkheimer family’s loss.

Darlene Austin

Lake Stevens