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Fair or Prejudicial Crime Reporting?

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Spray painting a wall with graffiti
PBS Standards Case Study

What should you do when police identify a 'person of interest' in a crime?

 

Here’s the situation:

For several weeks, police had been investigating vandalism in popular public parks across town. Profane words were spray-painted in bright red on benches, sidewalks, and playgrounds. What started off as a relatively minor nuisance then swiftly escalated when the historic Georgian-style town hall was broken into and defaced with graffiti, greatly upsetting residents. The damage was considerable.

A media frenzy ensued, and reporter Ace Shepard at the local public media station was assigned to the story. One afternoon, while making his rounds at the town’s police station, an officer mentioned to Ace that while no arrest had been made, police had a “person of interest” in the case—a disgruntled former city employee with a criminal record.

Shepard raced back to the station, excited about the scoop.

While reporting on the case during that evening’s news and public affairs program, Shepard named the “person of interest” and described him as a former convict.

 

What do you think?  Please answer the questions below.

More to consider:
 

  • The Richard Jewell story: The New York Times recently looked back at how the story played out in the newspaper during the summer of 1996. See “How the Investigation of Richard Jewell Unfolded,” from Dec, 13, 2019.
     
  • Police sourcing: “‘Police said’ is not a shorthand for truth,” says Susan Chira, the editor in chief of the Marshall Project, a digital news site that focuses on the criminal justice system. “You don’t give up your obligation to verify and corroborate” just because the source wears a badge and a gun. See “Journalists are reexamining their reliance on a longtime source: the police,” from June 30, 2020 (Washington Post).
     
  • Too much crime coverage? How much attention does your station give to crime stories? “Polling shows that Americans believe violent crime is rising, despite its decline over the years. Crime is now at its lowest rate in four decades. Yet it remains the number one topic on local news.” See the Columbia Journalism Review analysis “Why journalists need to think twice about reporting on arrests,” from Oct. 31, 2019.
     

 

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