By Don Chaddock, editor
The Telegraph has covered a lot of interesting stories since our last blog on July 4. Some of those include the Jaycee Lee Dugard abduction and the trial of Phillip Garrido. Others were the house fire in Folsom and the death of young Rocklin man who drowned in Lake Natoma.

Why cover Phillip Garrido?

One writer in a letter to the editor asked why would bother covering the Jaycee Dugard story and the trial of her alleged abductor, Phillip Garrido. That is a good question.

Since the abduction occurred in South Lake Tahoe and she was found in Antioch (all outside of our coverage area), we didn’t begin covering the story until Phillip and Nancy Garrido were transported to El Dorado County Jail. Since we publish the El Dorado Hills Telegraph, in which we cover the Sheriff’s Office, the story virtually landed on our doorstep. We couldn’t ignore it.

We were the only news agency covering the story, obviously, but I thought it could be something shown through a local lens, so to speak.

When the couple was first arraigned, the courthouse was a zoo. Approximately 70 journalists, many of them armed with video and still cameras, crowded into the courtroom. I stood on the left, at the guardrail separating the audience from the court proceedings.

The Garridos were brought in and sat probably about 10 to 15 feet from where I stood.

Phillip stared ahead and occasionally looked out over the sea of cameras. Nancy cried, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

Many saw this on their TV screens when the local and national news channels aired the footage. After the short hearing, we all shuffled out into the lobby where the attorney representing Nancy Garrido held an impromptu news conference. He was flooded by cameras, microphones and the like. I managed to snap one quick photo before being shoved out of the way.
I left, allowing the TV guys to have their feeding frenzy.

Later that evening and for a few days following, the Telegraph helped BBC Radio with their coverage of the case, even supplying sound bites from locals for their broadcast. We were on the air with them at 11 p.m. and midnight our time, but early morning over there.

We covered the Garrido case because we believed it was important and Jaycee’s abduction changed the way schools did things even here in Folsom and El Dorado Hills.

House burns in Folsom

A powerful photograph by Philip Wood on our front page captured the raw emotion of someone losing a home in a blaze.

Folsom Fire Chief Dan Haverty comforted Elizabeth Tyler as she watched firefighters work on her burning home in an Oak Avenue Parkway neighborhood.
The story can be found here.

Teen dies after China Wall jump

The death of Cody Isaacson, 16, should serve as a warning to those who attempt the foolhardy stunt of jumping off China Wall at Lake Natoma. The bluff is 40 to 50 feet above the water and the side of the bluff is slanted, so teens have to leap quite a distance out to avoid hitting the wall.

When photographer Philip Wood visited the site the weekend after his death, there were other young men jumping off the same spot. A memorial of flowers and cards sat under a nearby tree.

The initial story can be found at http://folsomtelegraph.com/detail/130782.html and follow-up stories are here http://folsomtelegraph.com/detail/130986.html and http://folsomtelegraph.com/detail/131450.html

Don Chaddock can be reached at donc@goldcountrymedia.com. He can be followed on Twitter at twitter.com/anewsguy. The newspapers are at twitter.com/folsomtelegraph and twitter.com/edhtelegraph.