My Admittedly Biased Analysis of the DMN Hunt Story

As Zac mentioned, the DMN version of the Hunt lawsuit story came out Sunday. Given that our take comes out in about two weeks (penned, by the way, by former DMN writer Gretel C. Kovach), I was eager to see how the paper handled it. Let’s jump.

When I saw the headline — “A Matter of Trust” — I moaned. That wasn’t the headline we used on the cover, but it’s the headline we used inside, with the story. I forget which of us came up with the headline, but it met with universal approval in our office. “A Matter of Trust.” Get it? A story about a fight over a trust. A family that has for years trusted one man to oversee their complicated business arrangements. A father’s fight with a son. It works on so many levels. So tip o’ the hat to the DMN editor who hit on the same genius headline we did.

As for the story itself, I thought it was very thorough — and very much like a newspaper story. By which I mean it felt flat. This is not to impugn the ability of the two reporters who wrote the thing. I think the medium itself isn’t friendly to long-form narrative. A story this complicated, with this many colorful characters, needs something more than an expository lead and all those short paragraphs.

I make you this promise: our version of the story comes with more sex and one near-death experience that the DMN completely overlooked. It will also come with illustrations.