Dave Greiling Morning "Behind the Headlines" Column: Our Intent Was Neither to Glamorize Stewart Nor Disrespect Cfficers

We're not a licensed psychologist, but here's what we think nevertheless

There's an eye-opening column in this morning's Standard-Examiner hard-copy edition, wherein Dave Greiling discusses, in his "Behind the Headlines" column, some rather harsh reader reactions to last Saturday's front page photo spread. Here's the lede:

Last Saturday's front-page presentation was not received well by some readers.

Specifically, a large photo montage of accused shooter Matthew David Stewart resulted in unfavorable online comments, phone calls and letters to the editor.

You can read Mr. Greiling's full morning column here:

• Our intent was neither to glamorize Stewart nor disrespect officers

Sadly, Mr. Greiling's column adopts an apologetic tone. "First, no media outlet sets out to intentionally alienate its readers, its customers, if you will." "I'm sorry that the photo and its display caused that type of reaction. It's also obvious that, in this case, we fell short of doing an effective job of telling that particular story," Mr Greiling says.

We caught that front page montage ourselves when we retrieved our S-E print edition from our front porch last Saturday, we frankly appreciated the human interest angle that that this "ticklish" photo image piece conveyed. Yes, we'll give our hearty "thumbs up" to the journalistic judgment of "the editor who designed the page," and who was "struck by the contrast between Stewart's appearance in the photo and the acts he is accused of committing."

Absolutely no apologies are required from the Standard for running this photo image piece, in our view. This photo display does very clearly and powerfully convey the truth of the matter, which is that the kid in the photos isn't necessarily some kind of non-human demon from hell, but "could be my little brother or the kid we went to school with." "It really is a shocking contrast. I think it showed he's a normal kid with a normal background," Mr. Greiling adds. Yes folks. Shockingly, the suspected "perp" in the 1/4/12 Ogden Shootings story "could be the kid who lives next door." Imagine that.

Hopefully folks, this little kerfluffle won't compel the S-E editors to soft pedal the "human interest" angle, either with respect to this story, or any other emotion-charged news item which might pop up in the future.

Happily though, despite the otherwise apologetic and conciliatory tone, the S-E editors appear to be stickin' to their guns in re this:

The photo montage helped tell the story of Matthew Stewart, in the editors' opinion.

What the S-E editors are experiencing here is likely a particularly accute reader response resulting from a psychological phenomenon known as "cognitive dissonance", we think. When presented with two highly contrasting, but practically plausible "realities," some less sophisticated S-E readers, who've been carefully cultivating a lynch-mob mentality over the course of the past few weeks, couldn't handle the informational dissonance and simply slipped into "melt down mode," we'll propose.

We're not a licensed psychologist, of course, but that's what we think.

So what say our Gentle Readers about all this?