Journalism differences between the Lexington Herald-Leader and Philadelphia Inquirer. When a poor newspaper outclasses a wealthy one

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The First Street Journal has twice reported on the mass shooting in Charles Young Park in Lexington, Kentucky. We also noted the murder of a 78-year-old man in North Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon.

But there’s a significant difference in coverage between two newspapers to which we subscribe, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Lexington Herald-Leader. The Lexington newspaper is, to put it frankly, dying. Staff have been cut, there have been three General Managers in just a few years, and the paper, which once covered most of eastern and southeastern Kentucky, is a mere shadow if its former self, almost entirely restricted to Lexington now, and print publishing only thrice a week.

Then-Executive Editor and General Manager Richard A Green wrote, on May 31, 2024:

Beginning Aug. 5, we will transition to a 24/7 digital product with three days of high-quality, locally focused print editions a week.

I think it’s fair to say that the newspaper has been all over the mass shooting story:

I’m not certain that I didn’t miss a story!

In contrast, the much larger, and in much better financial health Inquirer has nothing more, no followup at all on the murder of the thus far unnamed 78-year-old victim in the mass shooting in North Philly. The Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page has been updated to include the killing, but the Philadelphia Shooting Victim’s Dashboard has not been updated past August 9th. A second shooting victims database includes the victims of yesterday’s violence, and tells us that the victims were all black males, but that’s it.

My question is: will the Inky devote any reportorial assets, and they have many, to tell us anything about the 79-year-old victim? Will the newspaper tell us anything about his life, or tell us what we already know, that this was a targeted shooting, and whether it is gang-related?

In December of 2020, Inquirer columnist Helen Ubiñas wrote, “What do you know about the Philadelphians killed by guns this year? At least know their names,” in which she said:

The last time we published the names of those lost to gun violence, in early July, nearly 200 people had been fatally shot in the city.

By the end of 2020, that number more than doubled: 447 people gunned down.

Even in a “normal” year, most of their stories would never be told.

At best they’d be reduced to a handful of lines in a media alert:

“A 21-year-old Black male was shot one time in the head. He was transported to Temple University Hospital and was pronounced at 8:12 p.m. The scene is being held, no weapon recovered and no arrest.”

That’s it. An entire life ending in a paragraph that may never make the daily newspaper.

Now, 5½ years later, the newspaper has deleted the race of the victim, because, Heaven forfend! they couldn’t risk people taking assumptions based on a disproportionate number of victims being black, even though people in the city and surrounding metropolitan area already know that, and even though the local television stations show photos whenever they have them, because television is a visual medium.

But, 5½ years later, it is also true that there are far fewer homicides in the city, and the newspaper has the time, resources, and people to tell us more about the victims than the nothing about which Miss Ubiñas complained. What my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal has devoted its very scarce resources to cover the story; will the Inky do the same? Or will he be nothing more but assumed collateral damage in an assumed gangland assassination attempt?

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