The news doesn't discriminate

For the second time in a few months, I was left shaking my head about the reaction to the news. 

Not so much the news itself, but people online -- primarily on Facebook -- complaining about the local news media reporting on bad news. 

A few months ago, there was a fatal one-vehicle car crash in Mitchell which came at the end of a pursuit through town. A bad deal all the way around, made only worse when it was revealed a week later that the driver had a blood alcohol content level of nearly four times the legal limit. 

People were furious. A bunch of Facebook comments, saying our paper wouldn't let the person rest in peace (or my favorite, rest in piece). I took a phone call from a woman who seemed to be a family member. She was angry, but also biased. I wasn't going to be able to understand her pain or try to get through her tears to have her understand my point. Sometimes you just let people have their say, if even they call you some unprintable words about a story you didn't write. 

I'm not one to speculate, especially on death but it seems plausible that the blood alcohol level played a role in the decision making and the crash. But there were people irrationally upset that my newspaper reported on the man's previous history of run-ins with the law and that the paper reported on the blood alcohol content level. It was important to the story, no matter what people say. 

Sioux Falls outlets were the target on Friday when they reported the news circumstances surrounding the death of a Valley Springs volunteer firefighter in April, who had a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when he died fighting a fire. 

Dozens of Facebook comments poured in on the story, claiming that the news stations and newspapers had no business tarnishing the hero's reputation by reporting his blood alcohol content level and blaming one outlet for "ruining lives." This time, I was an outsider, a consumer of the news who knew exactly what it was like to be blamed for that. 

The general public doesn't understand how the news is made. For a newspaper, as an example, they don't care if sources didn't cooperate with you or if there was a tight deadline to turn in the story. They just expect the full story online as quickly as possible and then the story in their print edition the next day. They don't care how difficult your job is. And they have that right. They subscribe or pay $1 each day at the gas station and buy the paper and readers have standards. I'm glad they do. 

But when you get the news, you get all of it. You don't get a watered down version. You get the facts. And if the facts suddenly don't fit what people want the story to be or their personal narrative, they get defensive. 

In both cases, there were a few who understood that the stories were important because both provided key context to the story. That's why news outlets have the jobs they have. You have to dig into stories, and go beyond the basics. 

In addition, when you're talking about death or serious incidents, 99.9 percent of the news outlets are willing to wait for confirmation from authorities regarding who died or what happened. All of this information comes from the cops or the investigators. TV stations and newspapers don't make it up or take their own liberties. It's not worth getting sued over. Most outlets are going to try to be respectful as possible when you're talking about something this serious. 

But there's still people that blame the outlet and that's interesting. I'll put it this way: if members of the public found out that news outlets were holding onto information that fundamentally changes the story, they would be pissed. They wouldn't trust those places for news and they shouldn't. They wouldn't be conducting journalism. It would be censored and disingenuous. 

This information about the firefighter's death didn't come through "sources." It came in a press conference, directly from Brandon's police chief. From the police. If the police didn't release this information, it would be a pretty big piece of the story that was being held back, so the authorities here deserve some credit.

And the metrics -- the website clicks, the social media impressions which are so closely watched in this media landscape -- clearly indicate that the general public isn't nearly as interested in "good" news as they are in "bad" news. People don't read good news like they read bad news. I would know. I've spent a lot of time on a really nice feature about someone courageously fighting cancer that is barely read in comparison to a story about a local meth bust that contains only the bare bones reporting and information. 

Like I mentioned off the top, most of this vitriol was on Facebook. And in my opinion, there's more of that on Facebook than any other outlet. People say things that they often wouldn't say in person or things that usually lack common sense. I'm not sure what it is about Facebook (and Twitter to an extent on other issues) that makes people do this but you don't see a lot of good in people on Facebook when responding to stories.

People say they want good news but they don't read it like they read bad news. There's comments on the firefighter story, complaining that "this isn't news." The response, readership, comments -- and above all, journalism instincts -- would indicate otherwise.