Ex-Boulder Editor Recalls JonBenet Case, Critiques Today's Coverage

By: Joe Strupp Addie Rimmer spent less than two years as executive editor of The Daily Camera in Boulder, Colo. But what a stretch it was. Just over a year after she took over the paper in October 1995, the JonBenet Ramsey murder occurred and set off an onslaught of media coverage that recently erupted again with the arrest of a suspect.

Rimmer, who left Boulder in August 1997 for a job at The Detroit Free Press and currently teaches at Columbia University, recalls that the initial story was not the most important event at the paper. At the time, a slow Christmas week, the paper was in the midst of a switch from heavy regional coverage to local emphasis, as well as a redesign and the implementation of a front-end production system.

"It was not the only thing going on in that newsroom," Rimmer remembers about the day the story broke. She even recalls that the first police report of the murder had JonBenet's first name misspelled as John. "They thought it was a boy," she said.

But once the information was corrected and more details emerged about her parent's wealth, beauty queen background, and strange ransom note, the national media frenzy was on, Rimmer said. She recalls being amazed at what she termed the arrogance of the big-time news outlets asking her staff for the story.

"They treated us like this little backwater paper," said Rimmer. "But they thought we should be doing leg work for them, things they could have found on their own, that we should give them numbers and sources. Forgetting that we were the competition. I did not expect that from the national media. It was so overwhelming."

Rimmer said she eventually had to ask her publisher to take the outside media inquiries so she could focus on coverage. "We were getting requests for interviews and to give progress on the case," Rimmer said. "Within the first or second week, everyone had descended on Boulder with cameras and the herd chased rumors. The town was besieged."

As for today's coverage, which has received some criticism for jumping to conclusions about the guilt or innocence of suspect John Mark Karr, and blanketing some news outlets with every detail, Rimmer offered surprise.

"It was surprising to see this pop up," she said. "For a long time it had been off the radar screen." She took issue with those news outlets that have overplayed the story and given it extended air time and print space when little new information is presented. "It's not advancing journalism or that story if it is just repeating the same story," she said.

Asked about the initial assumptions that Karr was guilty, Rimmer cautioned against such stories. "People need to know what is the evidence," she said. "Just because he said he did it, it is a new development in the case and I don't know how credible it is. I'd be careful in the language I'd use."

Rimmer said she had seen some restrained coverage, citing CNN's initial reports. But she stressed that assuming guilt or innocence, as some have done, is improper. "People need to be a lot more cautious and not do that kind of journalism," she said. "I can see why they jumped out the first day, but after that people need to do a lot more homework about the case, about him, and what are the next steps, not filling newshole or air time with speculation.

"It will be a long time before we know all the answers," she added. "Exercise some caution before you jump to conclusions."