# Have you ever lived somewhere where the local news reported on local underworld leaders? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** netflix\ **Created:** [October 30, 2023, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321 "2023-10-30T16:22:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/1 "2023-10-30T16:22:13Z")
So watching the Netflix doc on John Gotti, and the thing that strikes me is how the clips of the New York TV stations reported on mafioso like Paul Castellano and John Gotti. I don’t mean later on, when John Gotti was famous worldwide (similarly to El Chapo nowadays), but earlier on in the early/mid 80s there are clips from the NY local news speculating things like: a shooting of a union boss “looked like a mob warning”, that Paul Castellano’s murderer was probably one of the mob figures sending flowers to his funeral, and even speculating the John Gotti was now the mafia boss of New York after having his predecessor killed (again long before he’d even been accused of anything like that in a court), I’ve lived in the US for 20 years (in Reno, Nevada, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the DC metro), I’ve never heard anything like that on the local news. There was certainly organized crime going on those cities when I lived there, but I never heard the local news speculate on it, beyond reporting the bare facts when there was an likely organized crime related murder, or when someone senior was prosecuted for organized crime activity. Have any dopers lived anywhere where the local news covers local underworld figures in this kind of speculative way? I’m including other countries here too (I’m guessing countries where organized crime is extremely powerful the local TV news won’t speculate about it out of fear for their personal safety? But maybe I’m wrong?) ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/2 "2023-10-30T16:31:50Z")
They report on Latin gangs in Southern California ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/3 "2023-10-30T16:36:02Z")
> report on Latin gangs in Southern California They did in the San Francisco bay area too in terms of reporting on crimes that appear to be gang related, and sometimes discussing the names of the gangs involved, but do they speculate on actual senior individuals in those gangs? (beyond reporting trials of gang members) ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/4 "2023-10-30T16:43:53Z")
I used to live in Los Angeles, in a kind of blah area of Hollywood that as far as I know didn’t have much in the way of gang activity, but I was often woken up by police helicopters over the nearby 101 on-ramp. I left my place one day and there were cops all over, and when I got home a few hours later there were news crews all over the place. I checked my voicemail and a buddy of mine at film school (who’s since gone on to be a director of some note) had left me a message, “Frank, dude! Your building’s all over TV!” Apparently there had been a gang hit in one of the other apartments, and in the classic way these things unfold, the body was discovered when the smell reached the hall. Before that I was in Montreal for uni. That city is pretty mobbed up, especially in the construction trades, though I don’t remember seeing much on the news about it at the time (though I tended not to watch French-language local news). ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/5 "2023-10-30T16:53:58Z")
In St. Louis we had a very notorious gang war in the late 70s and early 80s, complete with car bombings, shootings at restaurants, classic goodfellas stuff. It didn’t really end until everyone either died or went to prison. > **[Car bombs and shootings: when St. Louis crime families warred](https://www.ksdk.com/article/life/vintage-ksdk/vintageksdk-car-bombs-shootings-st-louis-crime-families-war/63-5dd5daec-4ab7-445f-8b8f-290e6d53f6f2)** > > From the late summer of 1980 to the fall of 1981, organized crime families were at war, and car bombs and mob violence shook our city. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/6 "2023-10-30T19:37:31Z")
I grew up in Philly. Merlino, Testa, et. al., made the news regularly. If someone got blown up or died in a hail of bullets, it was especially newsworthy. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/7 "2023-10-31T01:16:22Z")
Same thing happened in Rochester around the same time. Of course the local news covered the murders, bombings, and many, many trials. This happened in cities across the country. The mob bosses finally learned that public wars were bad for business. They toned it way down and tossed the goons and hired accountants. Murders make headlines. Financial crimes like money laundering are boring and hard to investigate. More importantly, they don’t raise public fears. I’m sure that if you looked you’d still find articles on mob related activities, but mass killings are better reported. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/8 "2023-10-31T02:24:58Z")
I did. I lived in New York in the 80s and watched the stories referenced in the OP. Gotti was the newcomer in NY who changed the face of the criminal organization and also the social status of the major mob figures. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/9 "2023-10-31T04:31:31Z")
In Cleveland Danny Greene and company was regular news, especially during the bombing years. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/10 "2023-10-31T11:07:40Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Have any dopers lived anywhere where the local news covers local underworld figures in this kind of speculative way? I’m including other countries here too Yes. Our news regularly reports on “alleged” gang leaders of the various [Cape Flats gangs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_South_Africa#Typology). ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/11 "2023-10-31T17:59:23Z")
I grew up in the Chicago area where reporting on the mob was absolutely a staple of both newspaper and TV news. WBBM-TV had a reporter, John Drummond, who made something of a specialty of covering organized crime and was said to know more about the Mafia than most Mafiosi. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/12 "2023-11-01T07:37:56Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > Before that I was in Montreal for uni. That city is pretty mobbed up, especially in the construction trades, though I don’t remember seeing much on the news about it at the time (though I tended not to watch French-language local news). During the Quebec Biker War of the late 90s there was definitely news coverage even outside Quebec. I don’t know how much speculation there was, though. The mob [tow truck war](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/project-platinum-tow-truck-partial-collapse-1.6471306) in Toronto gets stories in the news now and then, but I don’t remember any speculating about specific individuals involved. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/13 "2023-11-01T07:51:23Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Our news regularly reports on “alleged” gang leaders of the various [Cape Flats gangs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_South_Africa#Typology). Okay…ah…[this caught my eye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(gang)). I guess if you hear somebody in Cape Town muttering something about “those fucking Americans again” you’d have to ask if they’re pissed over international geopolitics or local crime. It’s not Neo-Nazi Mongolians, but once again I’m reminded that the world is an odd place. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-lived-somewhere-where-the-local-news-reported-on-local-underworld-leaders/992321/14 "2023-11-01T08:08:34Z")
I was recently reading up on the history of pizza on Wikipedia, and found this tidbit in the entry on Lombardi’s of Manhattan, widely held to be the oldest pizzeria in the US; > [@](#): > > In 1984, the original Lombardi’s closed, but reopened 10 years later a block away at 30 and 32 Spring Street, run by Gennaro Lombardi III, Gennaro Lombardi’s grandson, and his childhood friend John Brescio… Brescio, who remains the current owner, was named as a captain in the Genovese crime family by law enforcement in 2017. > **[Lombardi's Pizza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombardi%27s_Pizza)** > > .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct,.mw-parser-output .geo-inline-hidden{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}40°43′18″N 73°59′44″W / 40.72155°N 73.995624°W / 40.72155; -73.995624 > Lombardi's is a pizzeria located at 32 Spring Street on the corner of Mott Street in the Nolita neighborhood in the borough of Manh... Rather nonchalant manner of saying that one of the most historic restaurants in America is a mob operation, I’d say.