Its executive editor, Patrick Ethridge, was arrested for shoplifting in late August. The case was eventually dropped, per Searchlight New Mexico, which has a long story on the case, Ethridge's background, the Journal's reporting on this and more.
Chronologically, from earliest to latest, starting with the background, here's the issues.
1. Ethridge came from Beatrice, Nebraska. That's nowhere near the size of Albuquerque. Plus, being just 40 miles away from Lincoln to the north, and with either Abilene, Manhattan or Topeka covering everything south of the Kansas line, and Saint Jo probably splitting SE Nebraska with Omaha, it would be purely a community newspaper there, unlike some place out west where a newspaper in a town of less than 20,000, at least years ago, might have news coverage of 12,000 square miles.
2. When Ethridge's kids were detained for shoplifting themselves, and for general hooliganism, but before he was arrested, one of the cops knew who he was. Was it just because his mugshot is on some editorial columns, or due to something else? The story doesn't have anything further from the Rio Rancho PD.
3. Why did he cop a plea without a lawyer? Did he think this would go unnoticed? Rio Rancho isn't as big as Duke City itself, and the Journal acquired the Observer a couple of years ago. BUT, I think the alt-weekly Alibi is still around. And obviously the Searchlight and other papers are. I recently told Colorado media biz editor Corey Hutchins that I wondered if he had been Mirandaed or not, but that was because I was misthinking he'd been arrested in Albuquerque itself.
4. Speaking of? The Journal took nearly a month to report on it. Yea, a misdemeanor case, but a guy making an easy six figures doesn't need to shoplift, period. That said, per the pictures of him in the story, he doesn't look like the stereotypical executive editor for the daily paper in a city of more than 500K and metro of 750K.
That gets back to point 1.
WHY did the Journal hire him? I've emailed the Searchlight reporter to ask if any folo is forthcoming.
1 comment:
Sadly, on both this and one other recent Searchlight item, no response. And, this was email, not Twitter.
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