Local Issues

In a world in which people can carve out a career just by being the lone dissenting voice in the room, it seems as though every media pundit on TV can only agree on one thing: newspapers are dying. And while I agree that a lot of newspapers are having trouble figuring out how to merge their traditional print format with their websites and still make money off it, I think these pundits should take a moment and throw in a qualifier - most big-city papers are dying. Because, from where I sit it appears the local ones are thriving. It seems like every small town has a couple of newspapers that pump out an issue a week and they have no problem finding advertising revenue. You could make the case that is because most don't have a website and don't have to worry about people finding ways to get the same stories for free, but I think it comes from a far simpler explanation: people are more interested in what their neighbors are up to than what's happening a world away.

Much like with professional baseball, people are only concern about the local teams. When I worked in radio we had a national program smack dab in the middle of two local shows and it always killed our ratings. No one in Boston wants to hear an interview with the Kansas City Royals pitching coach. The same principle is true for local newspapers. No one in Newton cares about a noise ordinance for the bars in Worcester. If you want to have a successful local newspaper you need put most of your money in two department - obituaries and police log. People always want to know who in their town is dead and who got arrested.

Nowhere is people's nosey nature more evident than the local police log. Just check it out sometime; it's filled with entries such as, "Police were called because the neighbors thought there was a fight next door. Police investigated the home and discovered the noise was a fight on TV. Occupant was told to turn TV down." Over and over again the police are called out to check on something the neighbors thought they saw or might have heard because in actuality they just want the dirt on what is happening next door, but certainly aren't going to go and see what is going on for themselves. That would make them look like busybodies. (This is nothing more than a guess, but I would put the average age of people who call the police to report possible issues to be around 78.) Better to send the police to check it out and then get the real story later. It is like the cops in small towns are used to start all the really juicy gossip.

This week I read a local police log that was a perfect example of this. The first three entries were all people calling the cops because they thought there was a fight, a car accident and a robbery in progress, none of which turned out to be true. But, then this took the cake:

At 9:58 p.m. a caller reported that a 6-year-old child was screaming inside an apartment. An officer spoke to the parents, who said the child was upset because he did not like what was for dinner.

Seriously? You called the cops because your neighbor's kid was throwing a temper tantrum? This is the best use of police resources?

While I appreciate the urge to help and don't want people to hesitate about calling the police in an actual emergency, how about we make sure that there is really an emergency first? For future reference, I think we should all agree to take a minute and go in for a closer look before we run off to call the authorities when we hear a suspicious noise. In the end it may help free the police up for when they have to respond to a real emergency. It would be a shame if someone got away with a serious crime because police were too busy responding to a frantic call that someone was stealing the neighbor's dog and that someone turned out to be the new dog-walker. And yes, in case you were wondering, that was another item in the local police log. Told you - nothing like nosey, small-town America.