Maple bar

From Missouri comes the sad tale of a man facing a 30-year prison sentence for stealing a doughnut:
Scott A. Masters, 41, of Park Hills, Missouri, has been charged with felony second-degree robbery in the theft of a 52-cent doughut [sic] from a Country Mart in Farmington, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of St. Louis. Store employees said he slipped the doughnut into his sweat shirt without paying last December, then pushed away a clerk who tried to stop him as he fled the store.
But what kind of doughnut was it? Chocolate? Jelly? Those ones with the sprinkles? The story doesn’t say. How could the AP reporter omit what is the most telling detail? It must be something taught in journalism school, where being boring is considered a virtue.

For crime news done right we must turn to the Philippines. In the sordid story “Jailed cop tags mistress the killer”, notice how hard-hitting reporter Jay Dooma Balnig saves the telling detail for last, to devastating effect.

Comments

  1. Anonymous9/10/07 2:25 PM

    It is telling that Masters, the doughnut bandit, stole a doughnut and not an item more conducive to healthy living, such as an apple or a banana; or perhaps a turnip, even.

    ReplyDelete
  2. C. Van Carter9/10/07 7:12 PM

    If he had he could've claimed he was just doing what the food pyramid told him.

    ReplyDelete

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