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The lost story in Kansas City

Posted at 11:04 AM on December 1, 2012 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Media

How much do we elevate the importance of professional football players? A tragedy in Kansas City today provides an answer.

A Kansas City Chiefs player killed himself at the team's practice facility. The team's fan website has the important details in its headline...

At CBS sports, the importance of the tragedy on fans' fantasy teams had to be considered...

And USA Today was on top of the story...

BREAKING: Reports: K.C. Chiefs player commits suicide at team facility usatoday.com
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) December 1, 2012

So was NFL.com

And NPR...

Reports: Kansas City Chiefs Player Kills Self Near Stadium n.pr/TAFAb7
— NPR News (@nprnews) December 1, 2012

CNN only hinted that there might be more to this...

The Washington Post -- appropriately -- provided the missing detail...

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44. A woman is beaten every 15 seconds, according to the FBI. Of all female homicide victims, 30 percent are killed by spouses, ex-spouses, boyfriends or ex-boyfriends. Fifteen hundred women die each year the way a woman died today in Kansas City.

That's the story.

Comments (11)

To be fair to the folks at Arrowhead pride, that headline area on SB Nation platforms is limited to 50 characters. Could have been written differently, but was likely written early in the story, when details were scarce. The story stream that follows gives the details, including the lede once you click on the story.

Posted by Bryan | December 1, 2012 11:57 AM

If the dead player had steroids or growth hormones in his system, the entire League should be investigated by the DOJ to see if this is an anomaly, or just the usual lip service from the NFL on banning performance enhancing drugs.

It also wouldn't hurt to review just exactly what the Chiefs (and other teams) are doing to "motivate" their players.

Posted by Mark Gisleson | December 1, 2012 11:59 AM

Chiefs player in apparent murder/suicide.

41 characters.

Posted by Bob Collins | December 1, 2012 12:02 PM

Thanks again Bob. CBS sports should be ugh can't even say how sick them thinking about fantasy football makes me.

Posted by BJ | December 1, 2012 12:41 PM

(Here on a Saturday too.)

THANK YOU for drawing the connection to domestic violence. Some people reading this story will just see it as a regular murder (as if there is such a thing) and not an act of intimate partner violence, which is what it is.

Posted by Kim E | December 1, 2012 12:43 PM

As I said, it could have been written better, but when it was written, that detail was not available. All they knew was that there was a shooting at the stadium, and a Chiefs player was dead.

Posted by Bryan | December 1, 2012 12:57 PM

Chiefs player kills woman, self

Domestic violence is still too common but not discussed in polite company, apparently. The dead woman did not exist, in the headline

Posted by MikeB | December 1, 2012 1:31 PM

Thank you so much for this story!

Posted by YS | December 1, 2012 3:25 PM

// As I said, it could have been written better, but when it was written, that detail was not available. All they knew was that there was a shooting at the stadium, and a Chiefs player was dead

If that's true Bryan that how do you account for the fact -- as you pointed out -- that the missing details were in the story stream?

You can't say they didn't have the information to provide a suitable headline, and then excuse the lack of the real story in the headline by pointing out it was in the story.

BTW, all of those headline snapshots were taken within one minute of each other. If the Washington Post can figure it out, so can all the others. They all had the same information. They just interpreted the importance of the story differently.

Posted by Bob Collins | December 1, 2012 3:29 PM

Thank you, Mr. Collins, for getting it exactly right when so many others are getting it wrong. Thank you. RIP Kasandra M. Perkins.

Posted by FrustratedinKC | December 2, 2012 9:37 AM

Thank you, Bob.

Posted by Heather | December 3, 2012 4:06 PM