Oregonian taking a lot of heat from readers for this one. What do you think?

Newspapers spending money? Seriously? What planet do you inhabit? I want to live there.

 

Seriously, three of the biggest stories I've broken in my career started with tips from anonymous sources and a couple more big ones came from sources that simply pointed me in the right direction. That's how this business works.

 

If you don't write that after knowing it and knowing it's a public document, you'll be hard-pressed to write any kind of personal feature about him from then on. Maybe that's fine. But it would be pretty tough to know a kid did that kind of stuff and then go about printing how his coach says he's a good leader and wholesome young man.

 

At a paper I used to work for, it wasn't all that expensive and was already something they paid for because the crime reporter used it. you paid for a service, got a certain number of searches a month. Pretty often we would go over and just ask him to run some person we thought might be up to something.

That a paper with a strong investigative rep might just pay for such a service seems pretty logical.

 

That's what I thought. Logical.

 

That's what I figured, too.

 

You're talking over-staffed metros that are cutting by the dozens each year. I'm talking normal papers, mid-size and smaller that have no ability to do such things. I'm betting they got tipped off. I guess you're in the "accidentally stumbled on it" camp. LOL Whatever.

 

"Repeat offenses are not a major issue with this type of case?"
Do you mean there is a low level of recidivism, because numbers don't show that. One study shows 10%-15% after five years, 20% after 10 years, and 30%-40% after 20 years: Recidivism and Child Molesters
Or are you dismissing a repeat offense as being of no great consequence?
Either way you're out of your bleeping mind.

 

The original article mentioned the recidivism rate for kids of his age, not all molesters.

 

As someone else mentioned, recidivism for this specific type of case doesn't track with the general trend.

 

Teens who go five years without another violation -- which by all accounts would be Heimlich -- have a 2.5 percent recidivism rate.

 

But at the very least, "Publicizing cases educates the public about the dangers that come from repeat offenders" is at least an ethical argument for publication. It's approaching the question the right way.