On this, the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre, it seems there is a lot of mixed coverage on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. You would think an event like this would be on all the front pages, but apparently some editors thought differently. With news of the Pope’s first visit to America on the eve of the anniversary, that news battled the Va. Tech anniversary for space on the front page. It seems a lot of papers went with one or the other.
The Jackson Citizen Patriot went with a Va. Tech story and makes no mention of the Pope’s visit.
The Detroit News went with a story on the Pope, while the Detroit Free Press had neither story on the front page, opting for a story on the Pope’s visit on 4A. Interestingly, the Free Press went with stories on high schoolers building robots and sightings of falcons on the front page; I suppose it all depends on what the editors feel is more appealing to readers.
The State News ran a package of stories; one from the AP and one with student reaction to the incident. The Collegiate Times, Va. Tech’s paper, has several stories on the massacre on its Web site.
The New Jersey Star Ledger went with both stories on the front page, put made the Pope’s visit the top story. The headline on the Va. Tech story is catchy though, more so than most other papers who ran a similar story.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch also ran both, but made the Va. Tech story the centerpiece and ran the names of the victims above the paper’s flag.
The News Virginian did a similar thing, running a big Va. Tech story
I suppose the Va. Tech incident is more relevant around the Upper South, which is why some papers didn’t run anything on it, but it brings up a good question that many editors probably battled with; which story is more important or of greater news value? What do you think?
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1 comment:
Good post, James. I think it was logical that the State News went fairly big with the anniversary story. College shooting resonates with college audience even across the country. I think for Detroit, a pope story on Page 1 is smart. Lots of Catholics there. Most editors think about who their audiences are when making play decisions. But as you can see from the Detroit papers, they don't necessarily think alike.
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