Zodiackiller.com Message Board: Possible Zodiac Victim Cheri Jo Bates: 35th Anniversary

Today marks the 35th anniversary of Cheri's unsolved murder. As a former reporter for the Riverside Press-Enterprise I'm saddened to say that this also appears to be the first significant anniversary in which no mention of this tragic case is included in the PE.

Twenty years ago an article I wrote for the 15th anniversary of Cheri's death helped spark a revival in the case. A lot has changed in 20 years, including a change in ownership of the Press-Enterprise. Even so, I would hope that enough people remain in the newsroom to remember Cheri.

Thanks Tom for your efforts. Although recent world events have redirected our priorities, I remain hopeful that Cheri's killer will be brought to justice.

Bob Webster

Bob, to me the PE seems overly concerned about annoying the local police with another "When will it be solved" story.

Tom: One story every five years shouldn't be too much of an annoyance. I would think any good newspaper would want to keep a piece of local history alive. Sadly, this is how history becomes "ancient."

I think this reflects an all too common problem in today's media -- lack of local ownership and a lack of local "institutional memory." But this isn't a forum for journalism critiques.

The lack of interest from the local news media makes your effort all the more relevant. Thanks again.
Bob

My neighbor is a decades long employee for the Press-Enterprise. Usually a very nice guy, he became very defensive and assertively protective of his Paper when I politely questioned him on his Paper's choice not to do a story on CJB, this being the 35th anniversary of her death. He admitted that the PE is now owned by a Nat'l group BUT he says ALL the reporters are local who care dearly about their community. He went on to tell me that (as Tom suggested) the PE would NEVER wish to cater to the RPD - AU CONTRAIRE - as they were the ones to keep up relentless heat on the officers that shot unarmed Tyisha Miller, and that their continual unfavorable stories on the RPD were the reason the officers lost their jobs and the Miller family recieved 5 million. He claims the RPD constantly harrased PE employees at that time.
He believes in his opinion that they did not do the story so as not to be redundant, that the multi-part piece done last year, had since yielded nothing new, thus no reason to rehash. I respectfully disagreed with him there, even a short refresher article would, INMO, have been in order.
Then he turned it around on me - "Why do you critics expect everyone to do it for you, take matters into your own hands", blah, blah, blah.
Finally he said "why doesn't everyone give us a break, we are a huge contributor to charities"!!

I don't believe the PE did a "multi-part series" on the Bates case last year. The case was mentioned in an overview of several unsolved homicides.