Thursday, June 12, 2008 Seares: Killing a story By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
WHEN a paper or a broadcast station "kills" a story, it doesn't run it.
Reasons vary: dubious source, a major "hole" in the story can't be plugged on time, and, yes, when fairness or public interest demands.
Cynics may raise eyebrows over that last reason. Really?
Really. Sun.Star held for two days a story against a judge because it didn't have his side. The paper stripped of offensive detail the story about a businessman's death. It stalled the news about a police manhunt.
And similar cases, not once but many times. And in each situation, editors tried to balance the reason for killing the story against upholding the public's immediate right to know.
News cycle
Actually, the story is killed only for a specific news cycle. A paper doesn't run the story in today's edition but may run it the next day. Radio or TV news doesn't air it at this hour but may break it in a later newscast.
When NBI asked media Tuesday to spike the story about the capture of a suspect in the murder of Lapu-Lapu City lawyer Richard Sison, Sun.Star agreed.
Publicity could hamper NBI operations that had to follow. Whether it actually did wasn't the point. Editors decided on the basis of the threat at the time.
The snatching of the ABS-CBN news crew in Jolo Sunday was something else. Sun.Star papers ran the story Tuesday while major Manila-based dailies didn't. Maybe ABS-CBN moguls didn't think Abu Sayyafs would read local papers with their coffee and bullets.
Each case is studied as it presents itself while the newsroom clock ticks. And a panel of editors, not just one person, presides over a story's death.
