Clemens case shows how 'whodunit' can supercharge a story

As a high school journalism teacher many years ago, I tried to prepare students who cared little about current events and would never want to work for a newspaper to at least become knowledgeable news consumers. To that end, one of the fundamental issues we discussed was what elements go into making a news story -- things like timeliness, impact, prominent people, rareness, proximity and so on. I wonder what I'd tell those students today if we were to discuss the Roger Clemens steroids story.

For, in a sense, this story both defies logic and embodies several key ingredients of a good news story all at once.

A future Hall of Fame pitcher who will stand out among all the Hall of Fame pitchers, Clemens is clearly one of the most prominent names in baseball. Considering the potential for harm and misuse, especially among young athletes, the issue of steroids in pro sports is as consequential as it gets. And, the topic has been one of the most widely discussed issues for years.

With all of these characteristics, how can the Clemens controversy not qualify as one of the top stories of the day in or out of sports?

And yet, one wonders: How is it that Congress devotes nearly as much attention to whether one baseball player used a banned substance as it did to whether a potential Supreme Court candidate sexually harassed a former employee? Is the question of "did he" or "didn't he" regarding Roger Clemens using steroids worth as much attention as the question of "did he" or "didn't he" regarding Pete Rose betting on baseball?

Clemens is a big name in baseball, but less so outside the sport. I venture to guess that -- at least before he went on 60 Minutes -- he could walk through Woodfield Shopping Center on Christmas Eve and not be bothered much by autograph hounds or celebrity hunters.

It's just a bit of a curiosity to me that what is clearly a valid news story has become such a huge news story. But I also think there's a reason for it, and it's one that's not usually included in academic lists of what makes news news. In a word: whodunit. Or, perhaps more broadly, mystery.

Any good mystery has a way of exciting the public imagination and public discourse. Suddenly today, people who previously didn't know Roger Clemens from Roger Rabbit can't help forming an opinion on whether the baseball player is more credible than Brian McNamee, the sudden household name and apparent former needle carrier to the stars.

This observation also helps explain a variety of other cultural stories whose circumstances otherwise defy the level of public attention they have attracted -- stories like the disappearance and death of Laci Peterson, for example, or the Natalee Holloway case, or maybe even the granddaddy of them all, the O.J. Simpson case. The basic facts of all these stories differ little from those of various cases that occur in communities across the country almost every week, if not every day. But something made them part of the national mythology. That something probably has a lot to do with the 24-hour television news cycle, but it also involves a component that is as alluring to human nature as an Agatha Christie novel -- the concept of pure mystery.

At a news meeting Wednesday, Daily Herald sports editor Tom Quinlan observed that not much came of the Clemens hearings. "It was very intriguing to watch, but we really didn't learn anything," he said.

Sometimes, apparently, we don't have to. Sometimes, adding a little mystery to the mix of prominence, consequence and the rest can supercharge a story to the point that even fickle high school students find it interesting.