By Darren Johnson
Campus News
I’ve been following with curious disinterest the recent Justin Timberlake DWI arrest and how the media has treated it.
Part of my curiosity is because I cut my teeth as a younger journalist out in The Hamptons of Long Island — specifically Sag Harbor — where the arrest took place. I know a lot of the local media players covering it there.
I worked right across the street from where the DWI stop took place. One of the people who took the perp walk photo also shot for me once when I was covering a story — in case you didn’t know, the police in most larger regions, off the record, let the media know when a perp walk is happening.
(The perp walk is when a suspect is transported from one place to another, say the police station to the court, and a journalist can grab a photo of them at one of their lowest moments. You don’t think these photo opportunities happen by accident, do you?)
In any case, while of course DWI isn’t a good thing, it is a very common crime, and, with Timberlake’s incident, no one was hurt and no property was damaged. So, as a media person who also teaches the occasional journalism course, one has to wonder why is this news?
OK, it’s about a celebrity. But this news is national and persistent. It was up front on at least one major network national nightly news show I saw. I forget which. (They are all kind of the same — loud and bright and anxiety producing.)
The story is bigger than a DWI story should be, even considering the subject. Why did this story catch fire?
Ultimately, I’d say the key variable is location.
If this DWI happened in Omaha, it would probably not be nearly as big a story. But it happened in The Hamptons, a place that has become legendary, talked about as if it’s magical. A place with celebrities all over the place, mansions, world-class beaches, etc.
Not all DWIs are created equal, as this one allegedly happened in a majestic place.
And the newspapers there helped create this place. I went to college out there, when it was still somewhat affordable.
A funny thing is, us college students could get wild off-season rentals. Many rich people only inhabited their Hamptons homes from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The local college started after Labor Day and finished before Memorial Day. So we could group our money and rent waterfront, beautiful houses for a tiny fraction of what they’d go for in the summer.
In fact, many of us college students lived nine months of the year in houses we’d never ever be able to buy, even after getting a degree and working for decades.
I don’t think that dynamic still exists out there. The college now is just a satellite of Stony Brook University, and the few students there live in dorms. And prices have skyrocketed there. I don’t think seasonal homeowners want to take the risk renting to college kids off-season anymore.
But it was around the time I was there that the area became THE HAMPTONS.
The newspapers out there are exceptional. They usually win Best in the State awards from press associations. In the 1990s, they professionalized — went from being hokey old papers only the multi-generational locals read to instead being something better written and prettier the wealthier newcomers could also read.
The papers started being written and laid out by professionals who studied writing and graphic design in college.
One free paper out there in particular catered to transplants, seasonal homeowners, the rich and famous, and tourists, and was at the forefront of branding Eastern Long Island as a magical place to be. The paper still exists and is huge, with news boxes even in Manhattan, and sometimes has over 200 pages of ads in it. It makes many millions.
But the paid-circulation papers also are excellent, well funded by ads — there’s a lot of money out there.
When I wrote for those papers, because The Hamptons were so close to New York City and the area was a playground for media players from bigger outlets from New York Metro, and nationally, it wasn’t unusual for my story to get prospected by the bigger outlets and go regional or national, with someone else’s byline on it.
So Timberlake’s arrest happened in a place that, to the larger media, matters.
These gossipy events would often happen when I lived on Eastern Long Island. One local photographer I knew got photos from a celebrity accident there and told me selling the photos to national media made him so much money he was able to pay his mortgage for the year.
I saw the towns out there go from being run by hardworking locals who used their hands to build things to newcomers who built things by outsourcing the labor (to the locals, and others). The local softball league had over 20 teams at its peak, and was down to just a few by the time I’d left. I wrote about this demographic change for The New York Times, as now female college pitchers were entering the league, much to the chagrin of their typical players.
Eventually, it got to the point where the longtime locals couldn’t win elections as easily. Longtime locals tend to be conservative, newcomers tend to be liberal. You know the routine.
So The Hamptons became the place that the media had envisioned, for better, or worse. I guess not worse, necessarily, as everyone’s property values soared. (I was just a renter who could never get ahead there.) Those who wanted to move somewhere more conservative easily could afford to now, simply with the windfall from selling their Hamptons property. Just The Hamptons were never going back to being working class towns.
What If It Happened in My Town?
I wonder how this story would play out if it happened in the town I live in, Greenwich, NY.
Having moved up here a decade and a half ago, I see a lot of that in Saratoga Springs, on the other side of the Hudson from where I live. But Upstate isn’t an island — land is less finite. A regular working person could find the opportunity to own a home in the general region, perhaps.
And sometimes I wonder if Greenwich could become trendy like that. It does have some of the things I noted above; a change in the political landscape, the highest median income in the county, on the Hudson and Battenkill, its Main Street is starting to become populated by higher-end businesses and maybe eventually they will be open seven days a week, and some other businesses will come to town that cater to tourists.
I’d say this newspaper is more in the “new” style than the old, with more feature stories, and it does attract notable columnists. It’s a good PR vehicle for our area, at least.
Housing prices have been rising very fast, faster than other towns in the area. We’re only 15 minutes from Saratoga Springs — with enough publicity, many people spending time there in the summer may take a day trip here.
“Good Morning America” covered the town's Holiday Lighted Tractor Parade. Some local crimes have gotten national attention.
I think we’re to the point, if a celebrity got a DWI here, it would make the national news.
(And this is not to downplay DWIs — don’t do them; they are extremely irresponsible and dangerous.)
The question would be, though, is this what we want? To become an exclusive playground for others to enjoy? Or is there some benefit to that for us, too?
Reply below with your thoughts. Maybe we’ll print them in the paper!
Darren Johnson is a longtime Communications instructor who started the multi-campus independent college paper Campus News 15 years ago. He also purchased his hometown paper, The Journal & Press, in 2019. Contact him at editor@cccnews.info.
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