There has been a little bit of discussion online the past couple of days about a story reporter Brian Gray wrote for Mondays newspaper and Web editions of the Times.
The story was about the arrest and potential murder charges (charges were likely to be filed this afternoon in Jackson County court) against a 1987 Brodhead High School graduate, Douglas Sidie, who is jailed in Jackson County after authorities found the dead body of his former wife Saturday.
The story has made national news, and over the weekend we learned of the local connection. Brians story in Mondays paper essentially gave the facts about the case and made the local connection to Douglas Sidies days in Brodhead.
The story prompted a couple of criticisms, suggesting there was no relevance to the story that Douglas Sidie is originally from Brodhead. A couple of people lamented that the story reflected negatively on the Brodhead community, and didnt appreciate that.
Obviously, I disagree with the criticisms. As one reader pointed out, no judgments about Sidie or certainly about the Brodhead community were made in the story, nor should they have been. That someone who is a native of Brodhead would be involved in a murder that attracted national attention is news, plain and simple.
The job of any news outlet is to report the news of its communities and its people good and bad. If only good or positive information was reported, or for that matter only bad or negative information, it wouldnt be news.
And people shouldnt want to hear or read only the positive news in their communities. By hearing only part of the story, a person is not fully informed and cannot fully contribute to the welfare of their community.
The story was about the arrest and potential murder charges (charges were likely to be filed this afternoon in Jackson County court) against a 1987 Brodhead High School graduate, Douglas Sidie, who is jailed in Jackson County after authorities found the dead body of his former wife Saturday.
The story has made national news, and over the weekend we learned of the local connection. Brians story in Mondays paper essentially gave the facts about the case and made the local connection to Douglas Sidies days in Brodhead.
The story prompted a couple of criticisms, suggesting there was no relevance to the story that Douglas Sidie is originally from Brodhead. A couple of people lamented that the story reflected negatively on the Brodhead community, and didnt appreciate that.
Obviously, I disagree with the criticisms. As one reader pointed out, no judgments about Sidie or certainly about the Brodhead community were made in the story, nor should they have been. That someone who is a native of Brodhead would be involved in a murder that attracted national attention is news, plain and simple.
The job of any news outlet is to report the news of its communities and its people good and bad. If only good or positive information was reported, or for that matter only bad or negative information, it wouldnt be news.
And people shouldnt want to hear or read only the positive news in their communities. By hearing only part of the story, a person is not fully informed and cannot fully contribute to the welfare of their community.
