Sam Spurgeon in a sense is correct. He and others who choose to walk in the public light are treated differently by the media.
His run-in with the law last week would have been just another entry on the police blotter were he plain Joe Citizen.
Spurgeon’s aggressive advertising (is there anyone around here who hasn’t played off “in a jam?”) and England Authority chairmanship put him in a different category than most.
Fair? Not really. Reality? Yes.
How much media attention an alleged offense gets sometimes depends on the charge, sometimes on the accused’s public standing.
Often the revelation comes through a source, anonymously or otherwise. By its nature public life generates friends, and enemies.
Such alerts have become more common as the number of news-gathering enterprises diminishes and their manner of operation changes.
In many jurisdictions communicators no longer visit police stations and courthouses daily, learning from the public record what has transpired.
They rely instead on releases from authorities who decide what is worth reporting, and on tips.
Once tipped, the respective media outlets have to decide whether it’s news. And ordinarily when one frog jumps in, they all do.
The initial decision is sometimes, but not always, easy. The Spurgeon example is — the accusation is a felony.
Now the media task is to keep up with the case and its eventual outcome.
Arrest during the recent holidays of a public figure on an OWI charge was apparently judged non-news, if noticed at all.
OWI arrests, once a focal point of media attention, have become secondary information. Barring extraordinary circumstances, an arrest is just an entry on the list.
The media’s challenge is treating all public figures the same if or when such events occur.
We have our friends and favorites among the public figures we deal with. How we handle any alleged offenses by them defines how well we meet our obligations.
Jim Butler, a Bolton High School alumnus, was an acclaimed writer and editor at the Alexandria Town Talk for 36 years, the last 23 (1977-2003) as editor-in-chief. He led Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina for the Gulfport (Miss.) Sun-Herald in 2005. Butler returned home to Cenla several years ago, and shares his talents and insight with Rapides Parish Journal readers.