Crime package, forum were efforts to start more community conversations

As The Telegraph planned its crime package, which was published this weekend, we quickly concluded that we wanted the public to have a say regarding what we published as well as any other issues about crime. We brought together an experienced panel of law enforcement experts to answer any questions.

We applaud the heads of law enforcement in Bibb and Houston counties and in Fort Valley, Macon and Warner Robins. We also applaud the community panelists who prepared thoughtful questions for the panel.

We hope those of you who turned out were enlightened -- and maybe emboldened. Bibb County Sheriff Jerry Modena was not alone in driving home how important it is to have involved people in the community to help fight crime. It is not the job of law enforcement alone.

I wish more folks had attended. We expect to host community forums on other topics in the future. Meanwhile, if you missed the crime forum, you have an opportunity to see and hear some of the discussion. Cox Channel 15, in partnership with The Telegraph, will air a special on crime throughout the month of May. Check the newspaper or macon.com for more dates and times.

Free community forum on crime to be held tonight at the Douglass Theatre

If you have a concern about crime and you want your voice to be heard, plan to attend a forum called “Where Crime Happens,” from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, April 29, at the Douglass Theatre. Top law enforcement officials will take questions from a panel of community members. Officials also will answer questions submitted by audience members.

The forum follows The Telegraph’s publication Sunday and Monday of a series of stories about crime.

Several months ago, Telegraph reporter Amy Leigh Womack started collecting statistics for a range of crimes that law enforcement agencies are required to report to the state. Those statistics eventually become part of the public domain, published as part of what are called Uniform Crime Statistics.

With so much emphasis on crime, particularly in Macon -- for instance, a group of citizens convened by The Telegraph last year as part of a project called Mission Possible listed crime among its top concerns – Amy’s pitch to do a story about where crime happens was given the green light. She launched her project during a year in which the number of homicides in Macon and Bibb were up significantly compared to the previous year. That spike, between 2006 and 2007, was explainable (the number of homicides in 2006 was particularly low), but the number was still attention-grabbing. Where crime happens and to whom seemed the right target for a closer examination.

What about crime downtown? Is it as bad as one sometimes hear? And what about the Macon Mall? Who among us hasn’t heard someone suggest the mall isn’t safe, especially after dark?

The stories published over the weekend won’t be the definitive word on crime in our region. Not even close. The reports by Amy Leigh and other staffers who joined her in this effort are based on crimes reported during a short window of time, either 2006 or 2007. This is truly a snapshot, but the findings are nonetheless interesting and insightful.

Amy Leigh’s efforts were focused largely on Bibb and Macon, but she also looked at statistics from Jones, Monroe, Baldwin and Laurens counties. Public safety reporter Becky Purser, who works in our Houston bureau, wrote about crime in Houston County, Warner Robins and Fort Valley, and Ashley Joyner, who covers the police beat at night from our Macon office, looked at the 2007 homicides, including the impact of homicide on a family of a victim.

We view this report as the start of a community conversation on crime. To that end, The Telegraph is partnering with Cox Channel 15, Mercer University and the Douglass Theatre to sponsor Tuesday night’s forum.

We hope you can join us in this conversation. If you can’t, send your questions to Amy Leigh Womack at awomack@macon.com.

Feel free to e-mail or call me as well at (smarshall@macon.com) or 478-744-4340.

Was top of Page One the right place for story on plan to overhaul U.S. financial regulatory system?

Our lead story in the Tuesday edition of The Telegraph was an Associated Press story about the Bush administration’s plan to overhaul the financial regulatory system.

At our Monday afternoon news meeting, Telegraph editors had plenty of interesting options for Page One, but the financial story provided what we call a strong “lead’ -- meaning it was important and timely (the plan had just been announced; it was unveiled at a time the nation is grappling with a struggling economy; and it was seen as an ambitious undertaking by an administration near the end of its term).

The question, though, was whether the story would be written in laymen’s language. Would the impact of the proposed move be apparent to the average reader? Put more bluntly, would readers care about this story?

Ok. We had more than one question.

In the end, the story was as I had envisioned: Important, absolutely, but probably not all that engaging for many readers. In other words, it had a narrower appeal than we like for placement on Page One, and seemed a better fit for the Business front.

Meanwhile, failing to make the Page One cut was a fascinating story about the Army allowing married couples in war zones to live together. The story would not have replaced the financial system story as a lead, but it may have appealed to more readers.

Curious how other McClatchy newspapers displayed the financial system story, I looked at a number of front pages, which can be found each day on the McClatchy Web site, mcclatchy.com.

The Raleigh News and Observer ran the story as its lead, while The Charlotte Observer had a bottom-of-the-page photo that referred readers to a story in the business section. So did the Sacramento Bee, which, by the way, put the Army story on Page One. The Myrtle Beach Sun opted for the Army story, too, with no mention of the Bush financial plan on the front. The State in Columbia, S.C., had an above-the-masthead summary key to the financial story.

Doesn’t mean one paper was right and another wrong. There is no science to story placement, and the day’s offering of local news obviously was part of the equation. Just a little insight into our daily deliberations.

While I’m thinking about it, if you go to mcclatchy.com and click on front pages, take a look at the Fort Worth (Texas) Star Telegram and tell me what you think of its Page One approach to the news.