The 1A Sunday setup was classic narrative framing: Introduce the innocent people who live near the power plant; talk about their plight; tease the mystery; introduce the ominous corporate heavy; bring in the state regulatory agency, which has tested the water and found nothing of consequence… and now… JUMP FOR THE REST OF THE STORY!

It’s the kind of thing I used to approximate as both a writer and an editor, but when I encountered it as a reader, it flat pissed me off.

OK, you teamed up with some scientists to do some tests. You obviously got results. WHAT WERE THEY? Because my caring enough to follow a jump to read about somebody else’s water is dependent on whether or not your tests indicate that there’s any There There.

Instead, the reporter (a friend of mine, btw) chose to spin this out like a whodunnit yarn. And frankly, that’s manipulating both me and the story for the sake of … well, what, exactly? And I think we all know the real answer to that question isn’t even “readers” or “traffice” but the more basic “contest judges.”

I never did read the rest of the story, because I assumed that: 1. It would find some evidence of something, or else they wouldn’t have run the story on 1A; 2. It didn’t find CONCLUSIVE evidence of anything, or else they would have written a declarative story on 1A and won the award for community service; 3. What the story was trying to do was draw attention to the mystery and take credit for any action that attention produces.

So sure enough, a few days later, a story appears in the paper saying that the state regulators are retesting the wells. No results yet, but the paper is taking credit for the action.

Again: Is this why we’re so in love with narrative? Is it worth it? Is it a civic good? Or it is serving another agenda?