Final Word: Keep perspective after Jodi Arias verdict
May 8, 2013, 7:02 PM
Well, it’s finally here: Verdict day in the Jodi Arias trial.
Soon we’ll know what the jury of eight men and four women have decided in this case, which, for all the publicity it has garnered now, WORLDwide, is still a murder case, perhaps not even in the first degree.
This officially qualifies as a very busy news day.
In a week when three girls in Cleveland were re-introduced to the world after a decade of captivity, the national media didn’t know where to go. Scores of reporters are in Cleveland on Seymour Street, waiting for the girls to talk. The REST of the media is on the street outside Maricopa County Superior Court waiting for the Arias verdict.
It’s obvious to us here in Phoenix that the Arias story is number one, in terms of the amount of coverage we give the story. It happened here, after all. And the world has been, for very sensational reasons, watching very closely.
And a man was murdered. A man with friends and family in the Valley who want to see justice done.
But in Cleveland, three girls lost 10 years of their lives. A man who lived in a closely built neighborhood had them under everyone’s noses the whole time and who knows what unspeakable things went on inside that house.
They have years of healing to do and years to catch up on.
Some of what they lost they can never get back.
Let’s try to do their story justice too.
