Simplicity for Children: Awfully Quiet Out There

A week ago, Jack Flack pondered why the jointly issued recall announcement from Simplicity for Children and the Consumer Product Safety Commission came late on a Friday, the traditional dumping time slot for bad news.

The answer seemed to come a day later when the Chicago Tribune's Maurice Possley let rip with a 1,400-word report of the three infant deaths attributed to the faulty cribs. The significant detail in Possley's story would seem to validate the reporter's claim that he had indeed been working on the story for some time, and that the recall was announced on Friday to pre-empt the Tribune's coverage. Simplicty President Ken Waldman denied that assertion later in the story.

So what's happened with the coverage since then?

Not much, particularly in comparison with coverage of the Mattel problems, which has included no fatalities.

While Possley has kept pounding, and a few smaller papers pursued logical local follow-ups, the overall coverage has been modest. Reports on the inevitable lawsuits have been appropriately tempered, given that recalls often attract opportunists.

But why so quiet? After all, this is Simplicity's fourth recall in just over two years. And don't infant tragedies naturally push big emotional buttons with news consumers, and thus with editors and news directors?

Jack Flack suggests a combination of six factors.

1. The company is relatively low-profile. While its sales numbers are not insignificant, the company lacks star brands like Mattel's Barbie and Fisher-Price.

2. There's no stock market angle. Simplicity is a privately held company, and so there are no legions of nervous shareholders watching the stock.

3. The Friday break minimized the initial bang. Who wants to make a two-day story out of something that wasn't much of a one-day story to begin with?

4. The Tribune owns it. Sometimes, when one news source dominates a story early on, its competitors opt not to chase, not wanting to add luster to the early victories by validating the story's importance. And sometimes, they make that same choice because they lack the reporting manpower required to make up the ground on the early leader.

5. Subsequent events have lacked the pop to trigger the next chapter. Why re-plow Possly's story unless there's actually something new to write?

6. Recall fatigue has set in. At some point, the macro-story -- in this case, the "threats to children's safety" story -- over-saturates, and attention wanders. (By the way, has Steve said anything fascinating about the iPhone in the last 24 hours?)

All of this could change with one new trigger event, such as another accident, or the revelation that additional accidents had gone undetected. Whether or not such an event comes, Jack Flack would love to see Pasztor, Casey, Story and others put in some more of their good shoe leather on this. After all, without Possley's nosiness, Simplicity and the CPSC would still probably be haggling behind closed doors.

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