Like Pravda from decades ago, sometimes the most interesting stories in the Register are squibs of barely a few lines. The July 17th issue has a story like that, on page three of the paper.

There, correspondent Vicky Wedig France has a brief account of an Elkhorn man charged with battery to officers, among other offenses.

A story like this is so brief, it’s impossible to know what happened in any detail, let alone with certainty. A squib like this often relies on the criminal complaint alone, without any other reporting, interviews, or investigation. That’s true, apparently, in this story from the July 17th issue.

Wholly apart from the brief account in the Register, there are two things that one can say, with certainty. First, ordinary police work is occasionally dangerous, often unpredictably so. Situations in which a suspect may confront an officer are removed from public relations, flowery prose, uniform allowances, and grandstanding leaders.

Second, once an officer draws a gun, calculations of risk become far more serious, but more difficult, too. It’s in society’s interest that no one be injured, neither officer nor suspect. The ideal outcome is one in which no violence ensues. A suspect confronted with a handgun may relent quickly, but one cannot be certain — a different man may conclude that any opportunity to react aggressively to an officer (as with the moment between reholstering a gun and drawing a taser) is worth taking.

There’s no way to be certain, as the odds one might recall from a lecture or study apply only generally, and not in any specific case.

A suspect who has the opportunity to strike an officer, or push him to the ground, not once but twice, might easily have caused far more serious injury than the criminal complaint alleges.

There’s nothing good or pleasant in a story like this, but only the uncertain and unsettling. It’s not as happy as an end-of-summer party or Maxwell Street days, but it is, I am sure, more important than either of those events.

In this post, I will consider the July 10th Register. It’s issue number 17 of their 152nd year.

It’s a holiday issue with pictures from the Independence Day parade and weekend.

On occasions like this, the Register would be better off with an online edition. It could post hundreds of pictures rather than just a few.

Some papers have made the jump to online publishing, and the Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Janesville Gazette among them.

What about small weeklies like the Register? Shopper advertisers probably have a brighter future than conventional weeklies.

When I see photos in print in the Register, I wonder what would keep them from the Web? The easiest guess is a readership that is less amenable to the new, online medium.

That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? Stay a print publication, and slowly shrivel. Jump to an electronic version, and you’ll survive, but with a different set of expectations.

There are blogs in towns across Wisconsin, but there are few electronic versions of a newspaper other than those from true newspaper companies.

The blogger carves a niche regardless of print or online newspapers. The competition comes between online and print newspapers.

It’s a measure of how slow to react that the Register and Southern Lakes have been that a small online version of a newspaper has appeared in town.

It’s not a true newspaper, with true standards of journalism, but it is a competitor for the same boosterism that the Register offers.

It’s the Register‘s fault that they did not establish an online presence first. They likely have the means to take that attention back, and dominate an online news space, but there is no evidence that they have the will to try.

Regardless, blogs offering commentary are here to stay, in Whitewater, Wisconsin, and across America.

I have three issues of our local weekly paper to cover, and I will begin with the July 3rd issue.

Stabbing near the Eastsider. The lead story describes charges against two men allegedly involved in a stabbing and beating.

The defendants were charged with felony battery and misdemeanor disorderly conduct counts. The Register notes that the Whitewater Police Department sought initially charges of attempted homicide.

The Register contends that the difference in the charge that his department sought and the charges filed does not bother Whitewater Chief Coan.

It should – it should be a sign to him that the leadership of the department cannot assess a significant case without over reaching.

(There was a similar disparity between request and charges months ago involving a standoff in Whitewater. See, Signs of a Broken Police Culture, Part 2.)

On the removal of a waiting period before reapplying for a rezoning petition. At a June 17th meeting, the Common Council voted 6-1 to remove a waiting period before an applicant could resubmit a rezoning application.

It was a sensible decision; the reapplication involves effort and deliberation that imposes its own cost on an applicant.

There is an unusual observation that Editor Dampier makes in course of her story: that City Manager Brunner’s advocacy against the waiting period was “a rare instance of strong promotion of a particular measure…”

In this matter, I would disagree. I noted after Council discussed the issue in April that the Administration was not wholly committed to some waiting period or no waiting period.

I agree, though, that this Administration seems to have few strong, consistent opinions of its own.

A serious problem presents itself: this is an easily swayed Administration that too quickly adopts ill-considered positions from self-important local figures.

To use the language of organizational pop psychology (to which the administration seems partial), this is an administration without a firm, principled center.

There is a place for a malleable approach, but that’s only true where supposed people of influence are reasonable.

I do not believe Whitewater is that place.