Another lost story from the Journal

Off line I was reminded of another story I was involved in that shows the sometimes vacant editorial judgement at the new Flint Journal.

One of the favorite mottoes among Journal reporters: "You'll never know what inside page you'll find a Page One story on." That was true more times than not.

About three years ago I picked up on a plan by the Lapeer County Sheriff to sell a fully automatic rifle it had owned since the 1970s.

It didn't take much of my feeble imagination to realize this might be a good story. Let's see, a law enforcement agency deciding to sell a fully automatic weapon to the public. Nothing could go wrong there.

Well, actually, the Sheriff was only going to accept bids from licensed, federal firearms dealer, but it was still a great story.

When I submitted the idea and then the story, I assumed it would be a Page 1 story. When the story ran it was buried in the Region/State section. I shook my head and started questioning my own news judgement.

Roll the calendar ahead six months and the Detroit Free Press and that little New York publication, The New York Times, pushed the story right out front when the sale was advertised.

When I showed up to work, I had a succession of editors who wondered first, why I hadn't known about this and second, to get on it right away for our own story.

So I went to our morgue files and pulled up my story (again, buried far inside the newspaper six months earlier) and suggested that perhaps the editors should include their own newspaper with their daily reading.