The stories most often passed over by newspapers are the “small” stories about car washes, community cleanups, little league signups and school plays that are very important to the people involved, but not so much to the statewide readership.

These groups send in their press releases by email or fax to the newsroom in hopes that it will make it in print and draw hordes of people to their event.

We do place many of these types of events on page B-3 every day under the MyCommunities heading, but many more come in then we can possibly print.

As the community news editor at The Honolulu Advertiser, I’m in charge of running our myAdvertiser.com neighborhood Web sites, and I know how important this information is to residents.

To provide a venue for these type of stories, we have created the Get Published online tool. Get Published allows registered users to post their own stories and photos directly on a site covering their community.

We have seven myAdvertiser.com community Web sites: Honolulu (Waikiki to Makiki), Metro Honolulu (Downtown to Kalihi), East Oahu (Kaimuki to Hawaii Kai), Windward Oahu (Waimanalo to Kahuku), Cental Oahu (Mililani to the North Shore), Leeward Oahu (Aiea to Moanalua) and West Oahu (Ewa to Waianae).

As far as I know, we are the only news site in Hawaii that allows readers to directly publish their own stories online.

There is one caveat: we don’t allow advertising or opinion pieces on the sites. They are only for community news.

So, if you are planning a community event, a fundraiser or youth sports signups and want some free publicity, go to our Web site, look for myAdvertiser in the tool bar, click on that and find Get Published.

Then you write the news.

How important is it that a news story is new, that it just broke? Is the timeliness more important than, let’s say, how many people are affected?

As The Advertiser’s digital editor and today’s Behind the Headlines guest blogger, I thought I’d talk about the breaking news headlines we list on our home page.

I’m not talking about the really big stories, like last week’s coverage of the Aloha cargo division events. Those go in a special module at the top of the page. No discussion there. I’m talking about the daily breaking news that we run in a column in the top part of our home page.

We run the breaking news stories in that space in chronological order with the latest one first, by default. Many of our readers want it that way because it makes it easy to check in several times a day and scan the headlines to see what the latest news is.

But we didn’t always do it that way. When we first got serious about posting breaking stories around the clock, we weighed the impact of the stories and listed them with the heftier ones on top.

We heard from many readers who didn’t like that format because they would have to search for stories that were new. Sure, the story at the top of the heap might have been very important but they had already read it and they wanted something fresh.

That’s the reason why we decided to run the latest ones on top. (That and the fact that our boss, Senior Vice President/Editor Mark Platte, told us to do it.)

We know some of our readers disagree with this decision. They say we list stories that don’t qualify as breaking news in their opinion. These are readers who want us to make a news decision and keep the most important ones on top, even when other, less important events keep unfolding throughout the day.

Which type of reader are you? Would you rather see the very latest, or do you want us to weigh the importance?

Reporting on crimes is difficult enough, but when the police are unable or unwilling to provide information, the task of reporting fairly and completely is next to impossible.

This is not simply the concern of editors and reporters. It is the concern of everyone. People need to know about serious crimes in their own neighborhoods because it affects whether they should take further steps to protect their safety and the safety of their families. Conversely, if the allegations of a serious crime are weak or disputed, people need to know that, too. If the media cannot obtain the information, the public will remain in the dark.

Something happened around midday on Monday at the Paiolu Kaiaulu emergency transitional shelter in Waianae, but what happened is very much in question.

One adult and the child’s mother say a 9-year-old girl was sexually assaulted.
The Honolulu Police Department says it is investigating an alleged sexual assault, but would provide no further information. In fact, HPD would not even confirm that its officers responded to an incident at the shelter on Monday.

One reason that HPD gave for its lack of information was that a person was off work for Kuhio Day. But our reporters have been trying since Tuesday to get information from the police.

We don’t expect the police to have solved the crime right away, but an explanation of what they found Monday — if in fact they came to the shelter on Monday — should be public information. Was a child taken to the hospital? What allegations were made? Some people at the shelter allege there has been a cover-up. HPD needs to speak out to allay such allegations. The public has a right to know.

A rape of a child is a very serious crime and the public is understandably concerned when such allegations surface. The public needs to know if there is any reason for concern or not, and the police are in the best position to provide that information.

As I said, no one expects all the details immediately. But the public shouldn’t have to wait this long for basic information on an allegedly serious crime.

I welcome your thoughts.

An intense debate is taking place within the Advertiser newsroom over whether to name the four teenagers involved in a notorious incident in Lanikai on Friday night.

Using different sources, two reporters confirmed the names of the four male youths, members of the Saint Louis School football team. However, we have chosen — at least for now — not to publish those names.

The two main reasons for that decision are:

1. They are all 17, and therefore still considered juveniles by the courts;

2. Their alleged crime was a misdemeanor.

Generally, our policy is not to name juveniles involved in crimes unless it is an especially serious crime. The logic is that just as the courts treat juveniles differently than adults, so should a newspaper. The public scrutiny and shame that comes with being linked to a crime should generally be reserved for adults.

The story has been a Page One story because of the main player, Gerard Jervis, a former Bishop Estate trustee. If an ordinary person had chased some kids who had egged his house and there had been a car crash, the story would probably ended up on B1, or maybe as a brief on Page B3. And the community would probably have passed quickly over the story.

But, Jervis was involved and this is an Page One story. And it has touched a raw nerve in the community, especially among people sick and tired of vandalism and other petty crime that usually goes unpunished. See the comments on our online forum attached to today’s story.

Many people in the newsroom want the names published. Their arguments include:

1. The four are 17-year-olds, and though technically juveniles, they are young men and therefore responsible for their actions.

2. Among them are prominent members of the Saint Louis football team, supposedly role models for younger boys. One of them was a state all-star recruited by the University of Hawai’i Warriors. The media and the wider community treat football players as celebrities and their accomplishments are applauded — especially those players who are Division 1-A college recruits. Therefore, their misdeeds should also be reported .

3. Other mainstream media have reported the name of at least one of the boys, the UH recruit. Besides, in the 24/7 online world, the names are probably circulating on various Web sites by now.

4. By identifying them as Saint Louis football players, but not naming them, we place all members of the team under a cloud.

The more aggressive media environment that we all live in now means that organizations that withhold these names know they might be scooped by others with less restraint. Certainly, the Advertiser reporter who worked hard to get the names doesn’t like having his information cut from the story.

We will continue to report the story, so I welcome your thoughts on this issue.

The subject is suicides, but first a personal note: I’ve changed jobs at The Advertiser and added one word to my title that you might not have noticed if I didn’t point it out. That one word, however, has made all the difference in what I do.

I am now 24/7 Local News Editor — local is the new word. I now oversee most of the local news reporters and their stories, both online and in the paper. I help select and shape the local news coverage.

In my old job, I was more involved in national and foreign news, and in turning stories into reader-friendly packages of stories, pictures, headlines and graphics. I was at the end of the newsroom process. Now, I’m at the beginning.

Starting this new job has been overwhelming, hence the lack of blog posts. But it involves me in a new set of interesting issues. I’ll start with suicides.

We generally don’t report on suicides. We consider them a personal family tragedy that is difficult enough for relatives to handle without public scrutiny.

Suicides become news, in our opinion, when they seriously disrupt the lives of others or if the suicide involves a major public figure. Any type of murder-suicide is always covered, but if no one else is killed or injured, we are much less likely to report the story. That is generally the policy at most mainstream media.

A reader called to ask why we didn’t cover an apparent suicide Downtown on Monday where someone fell from an office building. The caller said many people saw the suicide or its aftermath.

We posted a brief item about the incident online under the headline: “Fall investigation closes Merchant Street.” The story said a person fell onto the road, but we did not call it a suicide. No other person was hurt by the fall, so we did not to report it further, either online or in the paper. We covered the incident solely because it closed a busy road.

In some cases, the evidence of suicide is inconclusive: Was it an accidental drug overdose or intended? Was the fall accidental or not? Usually the police and medical examiner are reluctant to make such a conclusion quickly if evidence is lacking. Sometimes the medical examiner’s verdict will come days after the incident. We weigh each case individually.

There is also the concern that publicity might encourage people contemplating suicide to take their lives in ways that is both dramatic and disruptive. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, there is research that shows that suicide rates rise when there are more news stories about suicide or when a suicide is prominently reported.

Many newspeople would also be able to supply their own anecdotal evidence. For instance, soon after Cyrus Belt was thrown to his death from an H-1 overpass in January, there was at least two incidents where people fell from the same overpass. We reported the resulting traffic disruptions online but did not call them suicides.

Advertiser Editor Mark Platte wrote a column about this subject last year that goes into more detail. Read it here.

I’d be interested in reading your thoughts on our suicide policy.