Bonnie Bivins, West Windsor
To the editor:
I was taken aback by the comments of Jane Hamill in her letter to the editor “Shooting at Trenton funeral should have made the news” (Tuesday, April 29). While I do not work for the Packet (nor have I ever) and I am not a resident of Princeton, I have lived in the area for almost 40 years and been a subscriber of the Princeton Packet for almost as long.
Let me start by saying the shooting outside the Galilee Baptist Church was a tragic event that shouldn’t happen anywhere in this country.
However, the attack on the Princeton Packet showed a lack of understanding of what news the Packet covers. The Packet typically covers crime that happens physically within Princeton and its neighboring communities or by someone who lives in the Princeton area and commits a crime outside the area. The Princeton Packet has always been a local newspaper that covers news that the Trenton, Newark, New York, and Philadelphia papers don’t cover. This is how we get our “local” news. Trenton news is communicated by Trenton and metropolitan newspapers.
There are a few other misconceptions in this letter to the editor.
Princeton and Trenton are not neighbors! True, the distance between Princeton and Trenton is not great, but Trenton’s adjacent neighbors are Ewing, Lawrence, and Hamilton townships. Princeton’s geographic neighbors are Lawrence, West Windsor, Plainsboro, Franklin, Montgomery, and Hopewell townships.
They are not both towns: Trenton is a city and the capitol of New Jersey; Princeton is a town. The two should not be both compared as towns.
Does that mean we shouldn’t care about what happens in Trenton, whether or not the event involves citizens of Princeton or Lawrenceville? Absolutely not! But let’s put our anger where it belongs. I am sure there are many factors of the tragic shooting that need attention and there are probably many things that can be done. Beating up on a local newspaper is not one of them.
Bonnie Bivins
West Windsor
