I'm pretty sure V didn't mean to imply that the 'Nique considered sports more important than the suicide-- simply that there were more facts to report about the sports than the suicide. You can't exactly put it on the front page; an article that takes less space than the headline is worse journalism than you can even expect out of an engineering school's weekly newspaper...
That said, perhaps a suicide is the one case where a human life isn't very important, and doesn't deserve a lot of press time even if you can come up with more facts. In part, I think that if someone has decided their life is so valueless that they're willing to discard it, who am I to argue the point post-mortem? But even more, I think the real reason not to spend a lot of time dwelling on the subject is prevention. Extensive coverage of any phenomenon in the news tends to make it happen more often. Witness, ferinstance, the spike in suicides just after Kurt Cobain of Nirvana shot himself.
I think the 'Nique has the right idea here. Run a short story with whatever facts the cops are willing to give you, and perhaps run an editorial letter or two next week, but after that, drive on.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Agreed.
Date: 2004-09-13 05:27 am (UTC)That said, perhaps a suicide is the one case where a human life isn't very important, and doesn't deserve a lot of press time even if you can come up with more facts. In part, I think that if someone has decided their life is so valueless that they're willing to discard it, who am I to argue the point post-mortem? But even more, I think the real reason not to spend a lot of time dwelling on the subject is prevention. Extensive coverage of any phenomenon in the news tends to make it happen more often. Witness, ferinstance, the spike in suicides just after Kurt Cobain of Nirvana shot himself.
I think the 'Nique has the right idea here. Run a short story with whatever facts the cops are willing to give you, and perhaps run an editorial letter or two next week, but after that, drive on.