You don't have to be in the publishing business to know an old adage: Crime sells.

For years now BeaufortTribune.com has seen great benefit from its MugFaces feature, pulling in the local arrest reports digitally onto its website.

Now it seems there will be a publishing showdown with The Island Packet newspaper family: they've launched a digital "Crime & Public Safety" section, pulling in their crime stories and related info and capping it all off with a prominent mugshot collection.

But apparently not content to take things lying down, BeaufortTribune.com — fresh off announcing that it was going on hiatus, but not really — has retorted by announcing an "upgrade" to show past arrests.

But given that the Tribune's content is pulled from the local sheriff's office's online access, The Island Packet was also beneficiary of this upgrade. 

It's enough to make you wonder why the county doesn't get in front of the issue by allowing proper public access to its Beaufort County inmate inquiry and cut out the middle men that are now acting as the de facto source of local arrest information.