By Mitchel Olszak
Lawrence County Commissioner Steve Craig was puzzled.
At last week’s commissioners meeting, held at Shenango High School, he openly wondered about the rationale employed by the New Castle News for selecting front-page stories.
Specifically, he was referring to an article that ran on page one Feb. 3 about a discussion at the prior day’s commissioners meeting regarding beavers along the Stavich Bike Trail.
At issue was a beaver dam that impacts a culvert along the trail. Culvert blockages have been causing damage to the bike path.
Talk focused on the need to remove the beavers and how best to go about that, including the possibility of trapping and killing some of the animals, while relocating the rest.
It seems the commissioners received considerable response to the article, virtually all critical of any effort to kill the beavers. Last week, the commissioners said they had made no decisions, but pledged to spare the beavers. They all admitted to having limited knowledge about beavers before this issue arose.
In his public comments on the situation, Craig attempted what many politicians in uncomfortable positions try. He sought to divert attention from himself to the press.
In questioning the decision to run the beaver story on page one, Craig said he found it “very interesting” that such a report would be played up in a community that had its share of “murder and mayhem.”
Obviously, the implication was that in Craig’s mind, the beaver story wasn’t important, and the public reaction he and his fellow commissioners had received was the fault of The News for playing up a minor matter.
Unfortunately, Craig’s understanding of journalism appears to be even less than his insight into beavers.
Those of us who have been in the news game for any length of time know the score. I always say that if you want to generate a public response, don’t write about the economy, taxes or crime. Instead, write about animals.
Craig is deluding himself if he thinks the criticism he and the other commissioners received about the beavers had anything to do with the page one placement of the story. Rather, we put the story on page one because we knew there would be public interest and readers would react to it.
As for Craig’s view that the story wasn’t that important, then perhaps people ought to wonder why the subject took up substantial time at two consecutive commissioners meetings — with no resolution in sight. If The News is obsessed with the trivial, what are the commissioners doing?
Craig further revealed his lack of understanding of newspapers when he suggested to Shenango students at the meeting that they compare what had hppened at the session to what appears in the paper. They would be different, he offered, implying some sort of diabolical purpose on the part of The News.
But a newspaper reporter is not a stenographer. Journalists write stories based on significance, community impact and reader interest. It’s just that we have a better grasp of these matters than Craig does.
As for the “murder and mayhem” that deserves front-page coverage in Craig’s eyes, we have our share of that. In fact, if you gather up a month’s worth of issues of The News, you will find articles of all stripes. There will be good news, bad news, human interest stories, tragedies and assorted sagas about life in Lawrence County.
And, not infrequently, you will see examples of local politicians making fools of themselves. It makes for insightful reading.
