Over the last few weeks, I’ve been contacted by a few sources regarding several potential stories alleging illegal, improper and/or questionable activities regarding property owners, business owners or local officials with one leaving an unintentionally cryptic voicemail with very little specific information for us to follow up on — I do know someone somewhere is maybe dumping garbage, but don’t know where.
The caller erroneously suggested that we probably would not cover the story because the property involved a longtime and somewhat prominent family.
That made me laugh a bit because every longtime family in the Sedona area knows that we will cover anyone and we always find out, eventually; “prominence” is no insulation and a town this small doesn’t have secrets for long. The Sedona Red Rock News has the reputation we do because we cover big, tough and in-depth investigative news stories and we have awards from the Arizona Newspapers Association to prove it. We are in the business of selling newspapers and nothing sells more newspapers than stories exposing corruption or illegal activities.
Another lead regarded a local property owner, who happened to have once bought some ads, but the lead turned out to be nothing; the actions in question were legal and we found nothing nefarious. After we looked into the supposed allegations, the caller, wasn’t satisfied until I sent links to documents and contact information for a local government office to verify what we found.
To be clear, there is a hard, bright line between the Advertising Department and the News/Editorial Departments of newspapers, news magazines and most reputable news websites. General interest magazines like fashion, arts, leisure, culture or travel magazines are pay-for-play, meaning advertisers purchase a packages that entails an advertorial “news” story favorable to the advertiser. These are fairly easy to spot in lazy magazines as the photos used for the “story” are identical photos of the ads used in the advertising.
Newspapers and news magazines do not operate this way. While we accept advertising from anyone, an ad is not insulation from journalistic investigation. Those who advertise do not dictate what stories we journalists cover. We cover those who advertise just like we cover anyone else and if they are breaking the law, we report on it.
Newspapers move remarkably fast and try to have few folks in the workflow so we can get stories out by deadline. Advertising representatives tend to not know what stories are coming down the pike before they hit the page, so there is really no timeline where they could stop a story anyway.
In my nearly 20 years in this business, no advertising representative has even asked me not to report on stories we’re investigating, nor would one try.
We don’t even preview the fun feature stories with the subjects we like. Our interviewees read our news stories at the same time as the general public: When they come out on the press.
I’m often asked by friends and acquaintances whether I can keep them out of the police reports, and the answer is always “no.” I’d be in them too, if I got arrested. To keep your name out of the police reports — don’t do things that will get you arrested.
That said, no source should be afraid of providing news tips to reporters or me for potential coverage for stories. We cover everyone equally. We’d be more than happy to look into leads.
“To keep your name out of the police reports — don’t do things that will get you arrested.”
There are some things we just simply don’t cover, such as civil lawsuits between two private parties, which are of no interest to the general public. Activities outside of the Sedona or the Verde Valley are not necessarily of interest, but it depends on scope and context. If a source suggests something illegal and we find that’s not true, publishing a “here’s someone doing something legal” isn’t really a news story either. But the biggest non-“leads” we get are rumors from social media sources believe to be true. Generally our first phone call proves they’re not.
Simply calling us and saying “so-and-so is doing something illegal, go prove my allegation is true” doesn’t help, and is often impossible to follow up on unless we know exactly what we’re supposed to be looking for or asking about.
If you do come to us with a lead, leave us your name, phone number and email address so we can contact you back if we need more details. Readers don’t need to know you, but we do. If you’re alleging a criminal or nefarious behavior, provide us with as many documents as you can: Police records, court filings, lawsuits, emails, letters, detailed photos — something for us to investigate.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
