Thursday, July 26, 2012

NWH harps on "Gacy nephew"

A man on trial in McHenry County Circuit Court this week has been continually referred to in Northwest Herald articles this week as the nephew of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

So here is the question. Why, since Judge Joseph Condon has ruled that the relationship to Gacy is irrelevant, does the Northwest Herald persist in identifying the accused by that relationship?

Could it be that the Northwest Herald is having a hard time understanding the definition of "irrelevant"?

If the judge says it's irrelevant, why does an editor at the Northwest Herald leave it in the reporter's story?

I'd post this comment to the NWH article but for the fact the the NWH is not permitting comments to their stories about this trial.

5 comments:

Gus said...

Note to readers: A comment submitted this morning is not being published. It mentioned another McHenry County residence who is not even remotely connected to this case.

Gus said...

On Friday morning, another article by Northwest Herald reporter Sarah Sutschek mentioned the irrelevant relationship between the accused and his uncle. The first sentence in today's article was "Closing arguments are scheduled for this morning in the child sexual assault trial of serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s nephew."

Why isn't Judge Condon's ruling about relevancy good enough for the reporter and the paper's editors?

Steinar Andersen said...

I absolutely agree with you. It almost seems to be their way to get ad hits (as it would be picked up elsewhere for page redirection).

Being Ray's friend, I can most certainly say that since the Jury wasn't sequestered, just how do we know they weren't influenced by this story? I guarantee you that McHenry County prosecutors were probably counting on it since it was brought up to them in the first place (and got out after that)....

Curious1 said...

Just because something is ruled as irrelevant to the legal arguments does not mean it is not newsworthy, in my opinion. Of course we can all disagree about what is newsworthy but the judges ruling on admissible evidence should have nothing to do with newsworthiness.

Gus said...

Agreed. Now what, exactly, was "newsworthy" about the repeated reference to deceased, convicted killer Gacy in headlines and first paragraphs, day after day?