On the beaten path

Rachael called to tell us what she had heard and seen, and it wasn’t long before we had tracked down information about Keith and had talked with his brother, Gary, who told us that neighbors had threatened his brother and that police had been called to the apartment several times.

In the meantime, over at County Court, Andrea heard District Attorney Andrew Wylie get a call where he used the words “homicide” and “suspicious.” He left right away for Sharron Avenue. We sent Andrea there, too.

It sure looked like we were dealing with a murder.

The Internet has changed the whole media playing field. It used to be we would work all day to get a story ready for publication in the next day’s newspaper. TV and radio could get it on the day it happened; our only option was to try to be more detailed and complete the next day.

Not anymore. Now that we have a Web site, we can get news as fast — often faster because of our larger and more widespread staff — than any other media outlet in the North Country.

We had a story posted on our Web site an hour and 15 minutes after Wednesday’s car-fire death. It said a man named Keith Primard had died in a car explosion and that police were investigating it as a possible homicide.

We updated the story several times during the day, adding comments from Keith’s sister and brother, some neighbors and more details from what we could observe.

Mike Betts shot still photos and video, and those were posted along with the story.

The problems started later in the day. First, we began to hear that the death might have been a suicide.

Now, we don’t normally cover suicides because we believe they are personal family tragedies.

We make exceptions for two circumstances:

— If the person who dies is a public figure. If an elected public official and other well-known person commits suicide, it elevates the story out of the personal domain and into a wider public interest.

— If the suicide is done in a very public way that draws widespread attention. A car explosion in the City of Plattsburgh is very unusual, and the place was swarming with police cars, ambulances and firetrucks. Word spreads quickly. In fact, within hours, teenagers were texting each other that it was a gang-related slaying.

But by 9 p.m. Wednesday, we were in a tough spot. We had the story ready to run across the top of Page 1, with a huge headline, photos and video promo. It included several quotes about Keith Primard having been worried about neighbors and people talking about drug problems in that area. It read like a murder story.

But was it actually a suicide?

The City Police weren’t giving us much help. We talked with the police chief and other officers Wednesday night, looking for some guidance. Sometimes police will tell us something off the record that can help us make good decisions. If they had said, off the record, that they suspected suicide, we would not have reported that but would have known to downplay the story.

In the end, we decided to do that anyway, for the sake of caution and sensitivity. We moved the story lower, introduced the possibility of suicide and cut a number of good quotes.

About 9:30, I had two phone calls from family members, one swearing at me and the other shouting, both angry that we had used Keith’s name on our Web site when his brother in Florida hadn’t been notified yet. We had no idea that he hadn’t been reached. His sister had given us the name, and the brother who lives here hadn’t mentioned in our conversations about Keith during the afternoon that there was any problem.

I said I felt bad about the situation but it was a little late, since the story had been on the Web for about six hours by then and the name had been picked up by other media.

The angry relative threatened to come down to the Press-Republican the next morning and straighten things out. Then he called City Police and told them we were harassing the family with phone calls.

We had talked with Gary Primard twice in the afternoon and once in the evening. But we know reporters from other media called the family, too, so they probably were feeling pretty stressed by 9:30.

City Police were understanding that we were just trying to do our job. It’s not an easy one, at times like this. We have to make decisions quickly and hope they don’t hurt anyone needlessly.