Robin Fitzgerald has the skinny for the Sun Herald and this post is a threefer for the following three reasons:
- Slabbed has previously tagged along with the Sun Herald’s coverage of the case. I’ll add someone had an advance heads up as to what was coming and stopped by here to register a bit of displeasure.
- St Slammany Parish DA Walter Reed is a lock ’em up and throw away the key type of guy unless a family member or Vic Planetta is involved in the crime. I am repulsed by the fact Reed would ask for leniency given his track record back home.
- The AP version of the story is online at NOLA.com and is Fitzgerald’s story heavily edited leaving out the Walter Reed factoid among others. McClatchy evidently has a corporate policy of “404ing” their stories after a month or so but the AP version will be online at NOLA for years and that is where the site traffic interested in this niche topic will go and yes there is niche interest in this story. Since the T-P restructuring news hit I’ve been mentally compiling a list of things newspapers do to slit their own digital throats, the above being but one example. If I had not been making this point chances are I would have written about Reed’s letter for leniency and linked the story that would remain online for longer than a month in the AP report instead of the source. For those reporters at McClatchy that wonder why blogs link the AP versions of your stories you now know the answer.
The future of journalism is here in cyberspace. Embrace it or perish. Pro Bono Publico.
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