Things just aren't the way they used to be. That's a grumble that's often heard in coffee shops.
It really shouldn't be grumbled. That things aren't the way they used to be is often a good thing. We have better medications than we used to, and better transportation. Entertainment options are better, and our standard of living is up. But lots of people still think a lot of things were better some time ago.
One of those things includes, it seems, the way the news is reported.
Some have told me - and I do mean more than one person - that they really don't like that the names of those injured or killed in motor vehicle collisions are no longer run in our publications.
They used to be, they tell me. In fact, photos of the victims were often gathered from somewhere and printed with the stories.
"Why isn't that done anymore?" they have asked me.
One man said he was very upset that the name of a victim in a recent car crash - one who survived the crash, mind you - was not printed in our paper. "I had to go to coffee row to get that information," one man claimed when he visited the Journal office.
My questions are these: Why on earth, as someone in no way connected to the incident, would you need to know that? And - putting yourself in the victim's shoes - would you want every Tom, Dick and Harry on coffee row knowing about what happened to you and what your injuries were? I think not.
The Journal has not run the names of victims that have not been officially released since things called privacy laws took effect. These days, responsible media outlets walk a very fine line between the public's right to know and respecting the privacy of the individual. Privacy is hard to come by in small towns, but newspapers are still bound to respect it.
When it comes to collisions or anything else in which people are injured and emergency services are called, we will never print the names of the injured for one simple reason - we do not know them. Those names will never, ever be released by the authorities - ambulance, fire or police - because it's against their code of conduct to do so, and also against some privacy laws.
As for the names of people who are killed in incidents, we will print them when or if they have been released. But it is up to the family to release that information to the authorities, and then, in turn, for the authorities to give it to the media.
If the family does not agree to it, we don't get it. And if we don't get it from someone in the know, it's not printed.
Yes, we could probably walk out the door and hear a bunch of names of people supposedly involved in something. But as responsible journalists, we cannot rely on coffee row gossip for information. We just don't trust it. There is simply too much gossip floating around that is false. And if we knowingly print something that is likely false, we run the risk of litigation against our newspaper - something my boss tends to frown on.
Also, there's the fact that if the police have not released the name of someone killed, it could be because they have not been able to contact all of the family members yet. Ask yourself this question - would you really want to find out that your loved one has been killed over the radio, or in a newspaper story? Or if you were injured in a collision, would you like everyone knowing the injuries you suffered? You may say that you don't care personally, but what if someone decided to clean all the valuables out of your house while they knew you were in the hospital? Would you care then?
There are certain things that the general public does not need to know. They may want to know it, to gain some sort of status on coffee row, but those who absolutely need to know who was involved in say, a serious collision will be contacted directly by the authorities. They won't be informed by a story in the newspaper.
