What's a headline worth?

The media in Vancouver are all over the story of the seizure of opium buds at Vancouver International Airport. Prominent among the details is the estimated dollar-value of the drugs on the street.

Why must the media report that? (I'll get to the standard, defensive answer that you get from a newsroom shortly.) All that does is let people know that it's possible to make that amount of money dealing drugs, and increase the desirability of that occupation. "Hmm ..." one could say, "if I needed to make a quick twenty grand, that's the way to do it." The fact that the stuff was seized -- i.e. that police at least intercepted the cargo -- only increases the challenge to "do it right next time".

Newsrooms will defend their action by saying that "that's what the police told us in their news release", but does no one in the newsroom run the information that goes out through the "public interest" filter?

I remember, when I was starting out in broadcast journalism, the local RCMP seized a stash of marijuana. Big deal in 1981, but doesn't even merit a second glance on the cops' charge sheet now. Wanting to be cool and get an angle I thought would interest people, I asked what the street value was. "Oh, we don't give that information out," the police officer said. I asked my boss if I should call a friend of mine who was involved with drugs. He said -- to my surprise -- "you don't want to promote that -- it might give someone else the idea."

It made sense.

Now, we fast-forward almost 30 years to see the police giving out the dollar figure (maybe they get a charge out of telling the public how much "business" they've been able to shut down) and the media dutifully parrotting it. (And I know the media can be selective, as I've found in my own dealings with them as a public information officer, with the number of times certain extenuating details are ignored -- and others are misreported.)

Worse, just over a year ago, there was a high-profile trial of a drug gang member, and the daily fishwraps showed a front-page photo of the accused's brother -- not exactly an angel, in his own right -- arriving in court, looking like something off the cover of GQ. A stunning (unidentified) young woman was at his side.

And it's clear, watching from Gospel Mission, which is right in the teeth of the worst alley in Vancouver, that a lot of young men are buying into that image. Good-looking, clean-cut young men, wearing hoodies, talking on cell phones and not really doing much -- although they do tend to vanish just ahead of the police, rather like salmon when an orca comes through.

Aren't we supposed to be discouraging young people from going into lives of crime -- in particular, dealing drugs and muscling into gangs? Don't we shake our heads in disbelief and disgust at the scene on the Downtown East Side, which is the fruit of that labour? Why, then, do the media insist on glamorizing the industry by reporting on "value" of a seizure and material wealth acquired by dealers.

Don't reporters understand the impact? It may be a grabbing headline one day: but it could lead someone to a life-changing -- and life-destroying decision.