
1998

1998

1988

Sunday is my day to look through what’s new this week on Netflix. I can’t get enough of lines like these (highlights in bold):
Helmed by Renny Harlin, this tense actioner stars World Wrestling Entertainment grappler John Cena as Det. Danny Fisher, a New Orleans cop who must save his kidnapped fiancée, Molly Porter (Ashley Scott), from the clutches of notorious crime lord Miles Jackson (Aidan Gillen). A battle of wits and wills ensues as Fisher is forced to life race around the Big Easy completing 12 near-impossible tasks and solving puzzles dreamed up by Jackson.
Scrappy Brent Black (Karl Davies) has clawed his way to the top of the Brighton street-racing scene by modifying his vintage Ford until it purrs, but when his crew gets tangled up with street racers from the big city, he’s headed for a dangerous showdown. With only a week to prepare, Black also faces a devastating fire that destroys his shop and his beloved ride.
While trying to provide for his ailing girlfriend, crooked ATF agent Stewart (Jake Suffian) becomes enmeshed in a nightmarish string of grisly murders involving deranged rednecks, deviant sex and the most disturbing act of vengeance ever imagined: the header. Based on Edward Lee’s classic novella, this unbelievably twisted horror movie co-stars Elliot V. Kotek as recently released ex-con Travis and Dick Mullaney as his creepy Grandpap.
Years after his teammates’ bullying antics left him in the hospital, a cricketer returns to his Australian homeland to play again. Only this time, the game is vengeance, and he has the razor-fingered cricket gloves and nail-covered balls to prove it! As the death count rises, Scotland Yard sleuth Kim Reynolds (Stacey Edmonds) arrives in Sydney to assist local detectives Chance (Jai Koutrae) and Scott (Az Jackson) in this offbeat horror comedy.
Step inside the twisted mind of Tom (James Meredith), an unassuming garbage collector by day and a cold-blooded serial killer by night. Unable to resist the powerful voices in his head, Tom can’t stop himself from stalking and slaughtering innocent female victims. During the filming of this horror movie, director Hart D. Fisher tragically lost his girlfriend, who perished at the hands of a real-life murderer.
When barmy scientists and crazed mutants threaten his island, Kong must become the indomitable Mega-Kong — thanks to Dr. Jenkins’s incredible cyber-link invention — in this ape-tastic animated series. When the famed Kong was killed years ago, young geneticist Dr. Lorna Jenkins extracted some of the giant ape’s DNA and combined it with DNA from her grandson, Jason, to create a powerful new Kong.
In this prequel to Transmorphers — a sci-fi thriller that borrows heavily from the plot of Transformers — planet Earth is in peril thanks to a rogue army of alien robots, and it’s up to a small group of humans to mount a crippling counterattack. Can Sheriff Hadley Ryan (Bruce Boxleitner), a doctor (Jennifer Rubin) and an ex-Marine (Shane Van Dyke) find the automatons’ Achilles’ heel before they succeed in annihilating civilization?
Caroline Quentin returns for another season of this popular British series as Janine Lewis, the tough-as-nails detective chief inspector who divides her time between solving Manchester’s biggest crimes and single-handedly raising her four children. In this collection, Lewis tackles the slaying of an up-and-coming rock musician, the mysterious death of a high school cheerleading coach and the murder of an illegal alien from Belarus.

1996

1997

My concern over the reader comments on the Tribune’s website is growing. The tone of some comments is now affecting my ability to do my job documenting the people of Utah. It’s not hard to find examples of the heated arguments an insulting comments on our site. I found all of the examples here in a matter of seconds. Just imagine if I had actually put effort into finding the worst ones.

The past few weeks have been full of tragic stories. A father accidentally kills his son by burying him with a bulldozer. An eight-year-old dies in a motocross race at one in the morning. A man is lost in Utah Lake after his boat capsizes; he wasn’t wearing a life jacket. A man accused of selling native artifacts kills himself. A five-year-old girl dies in an accidental shooting.
Every death should prompt an evaluation by society. Why is an eight-year-old racing at 1am? Why wasn’t the guy wearing a life jacket? Why wasn’t the gun locked up? These are valid questions to be asked.
But these stories on our website have become magnets for people who are ready and willing to judge the victims and their families before the bodies are even cold.
What should be serious thought quite often descends into anonymous commenters saying things like, “Once again stupid kid for not knowing better.”

I covered the funeral for James Redd, the Blanding physician who killed himself after federal prosecutors charged him with selling native artifacts. It was a tense story and a photographer who had been on the scene a few days earlier told me he’d almost been physically assaulted. I was expecting the worst.
I kept my distance as much as possible, giving the family room to grieve while still telling the story. But in the cemetery at the end some family and friends walked by. All were cordial. One woman told me that as hard as the events and media coverage had been on the family, it was the reader comments on the Tribune’s website that had shocked and hurt them the most. She told me she had to stop looking and couldn’t sleep after reading them.

I’m left wondering how long it will be before families start shutting us out. Not because of the quality and objectivity of our coverage, but because of the reader comments on our stories.
It’s not that your opinions and questions aren’t valid. I just wish we had a way to keep the conversation civil.

1995