When I was a cops and courts reporter at the Daytona Beach News-Journal from 1996 to 2004, I covered many breaking stories that required me to stay on top of the news. I did this primarily by making and maintaining daily contact with sources and monitoring the competition, such as reading the Orlando Sentinel, checking out news updates on WNDB radio and the Orlando TV stations and in the latter years, checking out the competing media Web sites for updates. I never got beat. The editor said I had fire in the belly. I call it journalistic instinct.
So you can imagine my disdain at how the News-Journal dropped the ball on its George Anthony coverage -- not once but twice. First, the Mighty Metro was dead last in reporting on its Web site that Anthony had been Baker-acted into Halifax Medical Center during the early morning hours of Jan. 23. Then on Tuesday night, Anthony was released from the hospital. The news was reported on the Sentinel's Web site and the Web sites of the Orlando TV stations and even on their prime-time broadcasts on the bottom of the TV screen, all before 10 p.m., followed by live report on their 10 and 11 p.m. broadcasts.
The News-Journal posted an Associated Press story at 4:57 a.m. Wednesday on its Web site, quoting the Orlando Sentinel as a source of the information. Then this morning, the News-Journal published an AP wire story on page 2C in the local section that read as follows:
Grandfather of slain toddler leaves hospital
Associated Press
The grandfather of slain Florida toddler Caylee Anthony returned to his Orlando home after he was admitted to a Daytona Beach hospital last month over concerns he might be suicidal. Family attorney Brad Conway said 57-year-old George Anthony was released Tuesday night from Halifax Health Medical Center.
He had been admitted to the hospital Jan. 23 after he was reported missing and found in a beachside motel. Authorities said he had sent despondent text messages to family members indicating he wanted to commit suicide.
Anthony's daughter, Casey Anthony, has been charged with killing Caylee. The child wasn't reported missing for nearly a month after she vanished.
The News-Journal could chuck this as simply an "Orlando story," but it happened in its own back yard, within three miles of the paper's newsroom.
We had a core of reporters and editors who loved covering breaking news and took great pride in it and we won industry awards for what we did when I worked there. That was then. This is now.
A lot has changed since 2004, with more than a hundred employees shown the door and the bureaus closed in DeLand, Deltona, Bunnell and New Smyrna Beach, while millions were wasted on the News-Journal Center, a disaster that resulted in a lawsuit won by the paper's minority partner that resulted in the paper being put up for sale.
It's so easy to bang out spoon-fed press releases and there are many of those types of stories every day. The true test of a newspaper's credibility is how it responds to news when it is happening. George Anthony's emotional overload was big-time news in what is arguably the biggest national crime story since O.J., with Anthony's daughter Casey charged with Caylee's murder. Where was the News-Journal on this story when it was news in Daytona Beach?
Enough said.