MARYSVILLE, Calif. — The death of a California Highway Patrol commander in Tennessee Saturday is under investigation, but who broke the story?
The Appeal-Democrat is a newspaper reporting on Sutter and Yuba County, and they were the first outlet to report on Julie Harding’s death.
Often, local newspapers and those who work on them are the ones who break larger news stories because of their involvement with their communities.
"I did everything I could to assimilate myself within the community,” said Appeal-Democrat editor, Robert Summa.
Summa has been a journalist for more than 20 years and has developed relationships with a variety of sources, including those who gave him tips to start working on this story.
"This story was basically a culmination of all of that,” said Summa. “The first tip I got about it was from a source and a person that is part of those relationships that I fostered… They got to know me, they got to trust me, they knew they could trust me with this information and they wanted me to write about it."
He then began calling other sources and agencies about the tip he received, reaching out to departments across the country for his story.
"A source or a piece of information would lead me somewhere and then I would just look up ‘how do I contact these people,’ then I would contact them and that piece of information would lead me somewhere else,” said Summa.
Summa reached out to agencies from California, Kentucky and Tennessee to understand the full story.
“Trying to piece this together, it was such a puzzle,” he said. “It's just this puzzle of different sources and different information from various different people.”
Summa prides himself on keeping his sources confidential, not even telling his wife who they are. He says confidentiality builds trust with sources and that’s incredibly important to him.
“[The community] can trust me and they can come to me,” said Summa, going on to talk about the difference between publishing rumors and facts.
“There's a lot of stuff that we know that we just can't talk about because we were told in confidence and we want to build those relationships,” said Summa. “There are going to be times where those relationships are going to pay off, such as this story about the CHP commander.”
The situation around Julie Harding’s death is still under investigation and the most recent information can be found HERE.
