Handling news stories about bomb threats

After much discussion, editors agreed that yesterday’s bomb threat at Eastern Washington University made two things clear: Online and radio coverage are timely deliveries to report breaking news as it happens, but for something that is only relevant news while it is still happening, editors decided not to give it in-newspaper coverage the next morning.

The new territory is the online and radio, live and on-demand. “If you could tell that relevant piece of information right away, wouldn’t you?” asked senior innovation editor Carla Savalli.

But after that’s over, how long does S-R report a cancelled threat? Does a breaking news item need to become a print-edition news brief for record’s sake? What if people wonder, today, why the building was evacuated yesterday?

Smith and features editor Ken Paulman said bomb threats, lockdowns and building evacuations happen pretty often - along with car crashes and fire evacuations. Of course when folks realize there’s no fire, “Then it becomes a fire drill” and the news value plummets, Paulman said. “Different stories have different shelf life.”

Something else, deputy city editor Dan Hansen pointed out the similarity to covering suicides. The Spokesman-Review has not published stories about suicides, because it’s been shown to cause more suicides when these people get news attention (case-by-case exceptions for coverage might be made). In similar fashion, editors want to avoid contributing to more bomb threats.

There’s a thread on News is a Conversation, also .

Thin slices

• Cash-strapped WSU student makes eBay tuition plea was an interesting read, folks said, but they couldn’t help analyzing the details.
• Bob Apple fined over campaign records filing
• Learning the job of parent : Fearing she could hurt her children, one mother called for help
• Longtime foes drop challenges to mine : Buckhorn truce lets company dig for gold
• Post-winter damage control for the yard mess
• Whitworth track star chases Ivy League challenges , namely, a Harvard doctoral program
• Review: The Melting Pot . Folks said our resident drinks guy and foodie Tom Bowers did a fine job of gracefully reviewing a place that didn’t impress him, without offending the people who like it.

Coming up

More details on the man who pushed for tougher laws against crack pipes/”love roses,” the next installment of the Joseph Duncan series, stuff on low-income housing…