Everybody loves to complain that the hometown newspaper and its website only prints negative news.
I can produce dozens of front pages, sports pages and other pages to disprove this. But I get it — one story about something bad easily crowds out a dozen others about people who are doing good things.
Take the Dec. 9 shooting of five people outside the Presley Boulevard convenience store. It was obviously news that people wanted to know about, and nobody that I know of objected to our coverage.
But it was another example of where the negative news really comes from: TV stations.
At least two Jackson stations were all over the story. They played the security camera video of the people getting shot outside the convenience store door.
We had the video too, but managing editor Matt Williamson and I decided not to include it on our website.
Those guys looked like bowling pins as they scattered and crumpled. They were under attack, and I don’t think we ought to traffic in recordings of local residents getting shot. If we did, people would rightly complain that we’re obsessed with the negative.
There have been too many shootings around here over the last couple of years for this one to stand out, other than the fact that it was recorded.
But the incident did get me to thinking that it’s time to talk about something I’ve been planning to do for several months.
Our crime reporting has been substandard of late. Two reasons for this: Ernest Herndon, who covered Pike County Circuit Court better than anyone ever has, had the nerve to cut back to one day a week when he hit retirement age.
Also, I have not had an eager-beaver police reporter for a while — somebody who gets to know officers, earns their trust and confidence, and gets information from them. Reporters like that are harder to find now, and over time I hope to get a local person in here to help with this assignment.
So here’s my plan for 2024: I would like to review all the incident reports from the Pike County Sheriff’s Office and the McComb Police Department that involve felony crimes.
Section 25-61-12 of the Mississippi Code says clearly, “Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to exempt from public disclosure a law enforcement incident report. An incident report shall be a public record. A law enforcement agency may release information in addition to the information contained in the incident report.”
Lately, we have reported the sensational crimes, like the Dec. 2 convenience store shooting. But we haven’t been reporting the more routine felonies, if you can call them that. Such as property crimes like house burglaries and car burglaries.
We haven’t been reporting all the felony arrests, either, so we’ll start checking the dockets at the county jail and police headquarters.
The same section of state law also does not require law enforcement to release certain information, such as the identity of a crime victim.
And that’s fine. Instead of giving the specific address of a burglary, we would report that it was in the 100 block of Such and Such Street.
In all honesty, I expect some resistance to this request. People say they want to be transparent, but when you start asking for details, the reluctance begins. If that happens, I intend to write about it.
I’ve been warned by a media attorney that officers might say, “We don’t produce incident reports.” His advice is to ask to look at whatever document they do produce.
I’m more than willing to work with law enforcement. If, for example, they ask us not to report a specific detail of a crime for a good reason, I’m glad to oblige. I do not want our relationship to be one of confrontation. I just want to do a better job of telling people what’s going on around here.
I’m sure that law enforcement leaders worry that lengthier reports will make them or other elected officials look bad, like we’re living in a high-crime area.
Come on. It’s not just us. McComb and Pike County are not the only places dealing with crime. As long as America has a drug problem, we will have a crime problem, because people who need money for drugs will be tempted to break the law to get it.
Anyway, you’ll know soon whether transparency was just campaign talk or a sincere pledge.
