SERIAL KILLERS: We don’t want them in our neighborhood, but we do want them in our newspaper.
Seattle area readers weren’t the only ones inundated with stories about the late Friday arrest of Gary Ridgway, suspected in four 1980s murders attributed to the Green River Killer. Readers of Portland’s Oregonian got newsy summary stories both Saturday and Sunday (craftily rewritten from Associated Press and Los Angeles Times News Service dispatches). The L.A. Times was the first major paper to send reporters north, resulting in a major Sunday piece by Tom Gorman and Lynn Marshall, accompanied by wire service sidebar stories. The New York Times put its Northwest correspondent, Sam Howe Verhovek, to work preparing pieces for both the Saturday and Sunday editions. Chicago Tribune readers got a pair of wire stories in their Sunday papers.
Readers of The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer needn’t rush to the newsstand—the out-of-town news hounds didn’t unearth any new facts.
James Bush
