As I do many days, I thought twice about today's front page.
Here's a little 'inside baseball' info for you when it comes to the newspaper racket, especially the tabloid format, which includes the Daily Times.
That front page is very important to us. It has a job to do.
That job is to jump up, grab people by the throat and implore them to 'buy this newspaper.'
A lot of times, that leads us into areas where readers accuse us of trying to sensationalize a story for no other reason than trying to sell newspapers.
Here's a newsflash: There is some truth to that belief.
It's not the entire reason. And I am more than willing to defend that front page and the decisions that went into it.
That includes today.
Our lead story stems from the incident yesterday morning that caused an uproar and disrupted the life of a lot of people connected to Upper Darby High School.
It started with a report of a possible person with a gun.
It turned out to be a plastic toy pellet gun.
But it was anything but a joke.
It ended with a large group of parents and residents forming outside the high school, wanting some word on their loved ones, and looking to take their kids home.
Meeting them there was Upper Darby top cop Mike Chitwood and school officials.
Keep in mind there is a distinct protocol that goes into effect when schools go into lockdown mode as Upper Darby High did shortly after the report yesterday morning.
Eventually the students were dismissed early.
Being a cop these days is not an easy business. As Chitwood held up that 'toy' gun, I'll be damned if I could tell the difference.
It could have been a tragedy. We've certainly read enough about similar incidents and interactions between police and young people displaying what appears to be a gun that ended in the worst way possible.
None of that happened yesterday. Sure, there were some raised voices. These are troubling times.
And police find themselves in the middle of it all.
My job was to find a way to present that story nearly 24 hours later to our print audience, long after the story had dominated our website most of the day.
I seized on the notion of Toy Story, spinning off the popular movie from a few years back.
But I also noted on the front page that this was anything but a joke.
That it did not end differently is a credit to Upper Darby police and school officials.
Comments