I come from a long line of goofy people who tend to get inspired by the seemingly righteous actions of others and I cannot help but be uplifted by a very recent series of journalism events in a small Colorado town.
After reading several accounts of what transpired I have been able to come away still believing that the news does matter to people and that there is an obligation on the part of news outlets large and small to make sure the stories are told.
The Ouray County Plaindealer serves the communities of Ridgway, Ouray, and Ouray County, Colorado. That’s about 5,000 people in case you’ve never grabbed a Caprese Sandwich and a Ska Hazy IPA at the Goldbelt Bar & Grill in town after hiking Mt. Sneffels or snapped a selfie in front of the Switzerland of America Lookout Point sign.
So, to bring you up to speed, the OCP, which I’m sure nobody but me calls it, published their regular, weekly edition last week with a front-page story and headline that would probably grab anyone’s attention; Girl: Rapes occurred at chief’s house.
The details are far better described in the pages of the OCP themselves, as written by publisher Erin McIntyre who owns the weekly with her husband and co-publisher, Mike Wiggins.
How about that for small-town journalism and romanticism of a free press?
To sum up, a 17-year-old reported to police that she had been sexually assaulted back in May by three young men, the suspected attack occurring inside the home of the town’s police chief. One of the suspects was the chief’s stepson, with the incident reportedly happening while the chief was in the house asleep.
Hours after some 200 issues of the papers with the story and headline hit the racks, somebody came along and took nearly all of them. Somebody who obviously didn’t want the story to get much attention.
But after the news of the theft of the news broke, it got a lot of attention.
The pilfering of a couple of hundred issues was hardly enough to stop McIntyre and Wiggins, who said they realized their story had gotten under somebody’s feathers. The publishers quickly posted the story on social media, opened up the paywall on their website so readers could see it for free, and then they had their printer do up another 250 copies and the racks were restocked.
Whoever sought to withhold the information from the people of Ouray wound up doing just the opposite. Everyone in the town and around the county knows about it and now as do countless people around the country and beyond.
There are at least a couple of messages to be found here, the tenacity of the journalist to defend and promote their craft and the importance of who that craft will reach, be it large or small in number. Impact is impact, doing the job right and well benefits the one or the one million.
There’s also the lesson to be learned by the guy who later confessed to swiping all those papers and by anyone else involved who might think they could benefit by that act of thievery.
I picked up the story on the ABC News website and now it’s quite apparent that an untold wealth of TV, radio, and digital/print platforms not only have it but are following and updating their coverage.
Nobody comes to the defense of journalism like journalists.
I write for a weekly paper now and while it is certainly a very different environment from what I encountered at the broadcast networks and local stations, there is still considerable relevance and impact to be found in our editions.
Events large and small don’t always happen in New York City, Miami, or Seattle. They are just as likely to occur in Stuyvesant, Juno Beach, or Brier (look ‘em up on a map) and when they do, the small-town reporter is standing shoulder to shoulder with the national correspondents and their crews.
Uvalde, Texas, and East Palestine, Ohio quickly became known to the entire country overnight and what happened there first came to the attention of and was reported by their respective and very local media platforms.
Good stories and good coverage are anywhere you find them.
And chances are, if they’re stealing all your newspapers, you’re doing something right.
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
