The Scarborough Sniffer has been caught!
[What an embarrasingly sensationalist lead! We apologize profusely to those of you who picked up this newspaper expecting a more serious look at the important events of the day. We recognize that this is the sort of thing which gives journalism a bad name.]
At 9:30 this morning, Bernard Paulo was taken in for questioning in a personal sniffing case involving 137 women in the past three weeks. Sources within the Niagara Police Force felt pretty confident that charges would sooner or later be forthcoming.
[Goodness, goodness, goodness, this is really beyond the pale! The man hasn't even been charged with any crime, and we are already branding him a heinous criminal! What have we done to the presumption of innocence? Has the press suddenly become judge and jury, putting the legitimacy of the justice system in jeopardy?]
The Scarborough Sniffer ran up to women in empty or isolated areas such as parking garages or Pearson International's Terminal Three and sniffed at their underarms or other private parts of their bodies. Over 40 of his victims died of embarrassment, while at least 60 more required medical attention or immediate access to deoderant.
[We're really ashamed of this blatant attempt at capturing the attention of our more prurient readers by recounting the grisly details of the crimes. If this doesn's further enflame public sentiment against the suspect, what will?]
Nathalie Goldberg, who was sniffed after an evening of light opera, expressed satisfaction that her long nightmare is finally over. "Why don't you bastards leave me alone!" she said. "I just want to forget what happened and get on with my life!"
[How can we be so insensitive as to invade the privacy of the victims of violent crimes? Haven't they suffered enough? Sorry, but crime reporting doesn't have the right visceral impact on readers if the victim isn't given a human face.]
The arrest was announced at a press conference held by officer Oliver Tront. "We have every confidence that the community is safe from these vile, disgusting attacks," Tront said amid much laughter, the journalists present having been primed by the 20 minute stand-up comedian before the announcement and the applause/laughter sign. [For a review of the comedian, see page C-3.]
What a sad lack of initiative -- taking everything the police say as gospel! They have their own reasons for publicizing an arrest: getting a large number of unsolved crimes off their books and assuring the public that the police are effective in protecting them from criminals, a perception crucial to the force's annual funding requests. That's no excuse for our facile reporting on them, though.
[Nostrilphilia is an unusual psychological complaint according to Dr. Fensterbuck von Echsport, head of psychiatry at the famed Tallahassee Institute for the Bodily Obsessed. "Body odour obsession seems to increase in societies with advanced nasal spray technologies," Dr. von Echsport observed, "although it's still not that common."]
Oh, now, that's a very nice attempt to buy back some journalistic credibility: quoting an expert. The last paragraph didn't really add any important information to the story, it was just there so that we can look in the mirror when we wake up in the morning.
["My client is innocent," said T. Huntington Borovoy, Paulo's lawyer. "The evidence is weak; I mean, my client doesn't even have a nose and, anyway, the press has made it impossible for my client to get a fair trial!"]
Some people think journalists can't stand criticism. Nothing could be further from the truth! We love criticism -- as long as it comes on our own terms. Like, far down in a news story. Or, in politely worded op-ed pieces, for which we can commission vitriolic rebuttals. Sure, we love criticism: it helps stretch a story that people would lose interest in in a couple of days into something we can milk for months!
[This newspaper paid $157,000 to Paulo's family for high school yearbook photos of Paulo, a bad love poem he wrote to a girl in grade 8 -- which independent psychiatrists say conclusively proves that Paulo was a raving loonie, not to mention an atrocious speller -- and a wad of gum chewed minutes before the arrest, which will be the special prize of a contest running all next month! "This is why I went into journalism!" said Editor Paul Goodgodfrey.]
This was not journalism's proudest moment.
