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This business about a police department inviting reporters to join detectives in a search in eastern Nevada was just about the damnedest thing I've heard of in my 29 years as a newswoman.

It all started just after 8 a.m. Thursday, when we got a news release saying the West Valley City Police Department received "information" related to Susan Powell's disappearance in late 2009. Detectives would arrive in Ely, Nev., on Friday morning to conduct a search and "investigate the information received."

So, of course, The Tribune and every other news outlet following this story rolled reporters and photographers out to Ely, a four-hour drive from here. A news conference was set for 10 a.m. Friday and West Valley police Sgt. Mike Powell was the public information officer at the podium.

Trouble was, he had nothing to say.

He advised the newspeople that there would be no questions because the "information" was limited. Undeterred, reporters joined in a chorus of queries, which Mike Powell had to repeatedly deflect.

Still, he said, "it's important … to involve the media in the process."

Never heard that before. Usually, reporters and photographers are behind police lines, straining for a view, wondering what's inside this house or that car. Stone-faced officers back the line, and only a fool would try to make an end run on cops.

News conferences are, in general, as limited as police bosses want them to be, and the dearth of information helps develop really good reporters who dig and dig despite the official silence.

Back when I was a pup, a horde of us were kept miles from the burning Wilburg Mine in 1984, stashed safely in a crowded, cigarette smoke-filled room in the Emery County town of Huntington. I've waited for hours for police officials to make an appearance (same with politicians). And in my 12 years as a reporter, I never was invited behind the curtain.

Friday afternoon, I asked a reporter in Ely what the detectives told the newspeople who ran the risk of compromising evidence.

"Be careful where you walk. Don't step on anything that looks important. Don't fall down any mine shafts."

Pretty much everyone I've talked to believes the search is, in reality, simply a bid to keep the Susan Powell case in the public eye — as if it hasn't been since she disappeared under highly suspicious circumstances 21 months ago.

This episode, however, also raises some questions about the role of the news media, says Glen Feighery, a journalism professor at the University of Utah.

"Does accompanying detectives make a journalist a co-investigator? And what if a reporter finds something before the police do?

"More importantly, if journalists and police appear to be on the same informal 'team,' does that dilute journalists' impartiality?" Feighery said.

And, he added, what if some of those journalists went on to cover a criminal trial resulting from the search?

Good questions. We try hard to identify conflicts of interest, even in the middle of breaking news. As I understand it, the invitation to join the detectives came at the Friday morning news conference.

One more thing. I met Mike Powell early last year when he was a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. A West Valley City police SWAT member, he would work all day and then half the night in pursuit of child molesters and pornographers. He's a stand-up guy who on Friday was placed in a terribly awkward position.

After this episode is over, we and the police are going to have to do some hard thinking about creating, and going for, such a sideshow.

Peg McEntee is a news columnist. Reach her at pegmcentee@sltrib.com and facebook/pegmcentee