Our prediction? Val Southwick won't be coming home for Christmas
By Curmudgeon
Sometimes, I have to wonder about news judgment at the Standard-Examiner. It's running this morning, front page of the Top of Utah section, big bold black letter headline, this story: Southwick Parole Hearing Set --- "Man Convicted of Fraud to Go Before State Board in December".
I reacted as, I suspect, the Std-Ex intended its readers to react: What? The man convicted of the biggest fraud in the history of Utah is up for parole after only six months? After being sentenced to nine consecutive 1-15 year terms? What the hell?
So I read the story. Here's the first paragraph:
The state Board of Pardons has set a December parole hearing for imprisoned Ogden financier Val Southwick, but he’s not going anywhere. Setting the hearing is the policy norm for all inmates whose cases do not involve a death, said Jim Hatch, board spokesman. “All inmates, except those with a homicide, automatically have an original hearing after serving six months,” he said. “The fact he’s having this hearing doesn’t mean there’s been any review done or any kind of quick release anticipated. It doesn’t portend a release at all.”So I have to wonder... where's the story? He's up for a mandated first hearing six months after being incarcerated, as all who have committed non-lethal crimes or crimes not involving children undergo. That's it. The lead paragraph and more further down makes it clear he is not going home for Christmas. So, where's the news? Why did this essentially nothing story lead the Top of Utah section with a bold all-across-the-page headline? Or was tricking people into reading the story the goal all along?
I don't know. Maybe putting "Southwick" in the headlines as often as possible works as well as putting "gondola" in the headlines to sell papers. But there seems, really, to have been no real story here, and certainly not one justifying banner headline treatment on the front page of the local news section.
