Archive for Saturday, July 15, 2006
Janice Poirot: Not newsworthy
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Let's print a news story about how a victim of an assault was really dirty, and how property, damaged during the assault, smelled. That's what the Pilot did in the July 11 article, "Rainbow rental returns wrecked" wherein a customer, "filthy with dreadlocks," rented a car from Steamboat Motors and was later assaulted. The customer was so beaten, "all his front teeth" were loose; the rental car so damaged, it was totaled. Sounds like crime to me.
Nowhere in the article are we told whether the assault on the victim or damage to the property is being investigated as a crime. In fact, the word "crime" never appears in the story. The article's focus is how "gross" it was to touch the car after being returned, how "an odor lingered" and this is an example of the "remnants of the Rainbows' visit."
The point of the article is clear: A dirty, foul- smelling, disgusting-looking Rainbow attendee was untrustworthy with rental property, and the public should generalize this to all associated with the Rainbow Gathering.
I'm looking forward to future Pilot articles on the objectionable traits of Steamboat tourists, who are assaulted while visiting. Perhaps a story on how the renter of a burglarized apartment smelled really foul would be newsworthy. Ethnic jokes, anyone?
Janice Poirot
Steamboat Springs
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