Mall story flares into news arena but quickly fades

When an 18-year-old walked into Trolley Square and started shooting on Monday evening, it quickly became huge news locally, big news nationally and also news around the world.

The BBC covered it. So did Swedish radio. You could read, watch and hear about it from France to Japan, Australia to South Africa.

But before the crime scene had even been processed, the news cycle had already started to move on.

By early Tuesday morning, the news out of Salt Lake City was one of the top stories — but rarely the top story in the national media.

Across the television dial — including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNBC — the Trolley Square story was often playing behind the winter storm striking the eastern half of the United States. And more often than not, national TV networks were taking reports from local TV reporters rather than dispatching their own staffers.

By midmorning, the cable-news networks were devoting more time to the death of Anna Nicole Smith five days earlier in Florida than to the killings of five people, the hospitalization of four more and the death of the shooter in Utah slightly more than half a day earlier. The release of the 31-second 911 call made from Smith's hotel room after she was found unconscious was bigger news, apparently.

The Utah story was considered important enough, however, for CNN and FNC to carry part of the midday news conference at the City-County Building live. A reporter was there for the New York Times, as were more than a dozen local and national TV crews. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez said she had flown in from Los Angeles.

One TV photographer who didn't want to be identified said, "Off the record, we've had five or six days of Anna Nicole Smith. And to me, this is a big story and should have big turnout. Five innocent people died."

By noon, the camera crews at Trolley Square were still mostly local people who jump when the network calls; the reporters were all well-coiffed young women, such as CBS's Jennifer Miller, who had flown in and was looking for witnesses or other local people who would give a reaction; her photographer is based in Denver.

Derek Reign, a photographer from Heber, was working for ABC. "I think this is such a big deal because Salt Lake is considered such a quiet city where something like this is not expected to happen," he said. "I am actually sad being here because it's such a tragic story."