All the crime news fit to print?

This post was written by Popeye and put onto our discussion board on sanluisobispo.com last week:

"Has anyone else ever wonderd why crimes that happen in the town known as "Almost Paradise" aka, Paso Robles don't make the pages of the Tribune. Just last Saturday night at a party of young people in Paso Robles, a young man ... was stabbed in the neck with a broken beer bottle. He was taken to the hospital by friends before both police and paramedics arrived on the scene ... But I think it is not a case of cover up on the part of the Trib as much as it is a cover up by officials in Paso Robles to once again hide the ugly fact that crimes, specifically violent crimes actually take place."

I asked City Editor Matt Lazier whether we'd heard of this incident last week, and he said he had not. Bottom line: If we'd learned of it, we likely would have reported it (i.e., as long as the victim did not self-inflict the wounds. If he had, then we enter a discussion about attempted suicide).
We publish a police blotter nearly every day in our Local section. It includes items from around the county. We do rely on the police and Sheriff's Department to make us aware of newsworthy calls their officers and deputies respond to. We would be similar to most all community papers in that regard. To be sure, there are occasions when police, for their investigative purposes, choose to keep an incident quiet. Sometimes people in a community will tip us to an incident, and we can report it, or at least look into it.
Otherwise, we follow our regular practices of making calls every morning to the police departments to find out what significant calls they have been on. We also regularly review the list of police calls known as the log.
You can also see all the calls reported to the San Luis Obispo Police Department on our Web site. It updates every day.
_ Tad Weber