A man’s life, reduced to four paragraphs. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Coroner releases name of man, 21, who died after shooting in Lexington

by Karla Ward | Saturday, December 18, 2021 | 12:44 PM EST | Updated: 1:48 PM EST

A 21-year-old man died after being shot in a neighborhood near downtown Lexington late Friday.

Lexington police said they were called to the shooting on the 800 block of Oak Hill Drive, off Loudon Avenue, at 10:56 p.m. When they arrived, police found the man inside a residence, Lexington police said in a news release Saturday.

The Fayette County coroner’s office said the man, Devon Sandusky, was pronounced dead at the scene at 11:25 p.m.

They said the investigation is ongoing. No suspect information was released.

There was a fifth paragraph, but one which simply told readers where to report information to the police. A sixth paragraph noted that this was the city’s 36^th homicide of the year, a new record. The previous record was 34, set in 2020. At the current pace, Lexington is projected to see one or two more killings before 2021 is over.

To me, this was sadly reminiscent of the stories I see in The Philadelphia Inquirer, where a murder victim’s life is reduced to a few short paragraphs, often without even the victim’s name being published. But, unlike the Inquirer, the Herald-Leader will print more about the murder as more information is released. With ‘only’ 36 homicides on which to report, the newspaper’s staff can put a little bit more time into reporting on it; the Inquirer’s staff are overwhelmed, with 535 homicides through Thursday, December 16^th, and the City of Brotherly Love on pace to record another 23 killings, for a total of 558.