Determination
138
Minnesota
News Council
In the Matter of the Complaint of
CVPA v. The Wright County Journal Press
The News Council voted 15-5 that the Wright County Journal-Press, a weekly newspaper in Buffalo, Minn., was unfair in is coverage of a rape case, even though its stories contained no inaccuracies.
The suspect, who eventually pleaded guilty, was William Bell, then 20, who came from Chicago, was living in St. Paul and spending time with a girlfriend in Buffalo. He is black. The rape victim first identified her assailant as white.
The complaint to the News Council came on Bell’s behalf from the Center for Victims of Professional Abuse, represented by Marjory Aldrich, of Buffalo. She said the newspaper had failed to report Bell’s views on his case, even though he had written and telephoned the paper from jail while awaiting trial. He wanted to rebut news articles and to criticize the investigation and the public defender assigned to his case.
The Journal-Press’s publisher, James McDonnell, Jr., said the paper’s policy was to report the progress of a criminal case through the courts, to cite only reliable sources — the police and prosecutor — and, because its resources were limited, not to investigate cases.
The Journal-Press reporter/editor said he did not read the file on the case and did not attend the pre-trial hearing. After the hearing, the editor called the prosecutor to find out what had happened, but not the defense attorney. Council member Cathy Kennedy, a public relations counselor, criticized the paper’s reliance on the prosecutor to say what the defense attorney had said and done.
McDonnell said the paper did not publish Bell’s letter because it did not have his attorney’s approval, and that the paper did not call the attorney because historically defense attorneys do not want their clients to talk to the press. He said the paper did not want to publish something from the defendant that might hurt his cause. Besides, he said, an incarcerated person has no legal or ethical right to demand that his views be published.
Aldrich disputed that view. She held up a recent clipping from the Journal-Press that reported on charges against one of Buffalo’s most recognizable citizens, a businessman and civic leader charged with child pornography. The news story said the Journal-Press had tried to reach the man for his comments on the charges, but could not find him.
News Council member Rachel Quenemoen, an education specialist from Clarkfield, in western Minnesota, said she was horrified at the disparity in treatment the Journal-Press gave that man and the rape suspect. The publisher said the paper had used good news judgment: the local man was a major figure; the rape suspect was a stranger in town.
Quenemoen also questioned the paper’s attitude toward using sources it considered “reliable.” She said the New York Times and the Washington Post both have recently acknowledged in print that they failed the public in serving as conduits for “reliable sources” that misled them on Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction and that smoothed the way for a declaration of war.
Council member Brandt Williams, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter who once was editor of a black weekly newspaper, said he understood that the Journal-Press, like most Minnesota weeklies, has limited resources. He suggested that if such papers cannot cover crime properly, they not cover crime at all. Reed Anfinson, publisher/editor of the Swift County Monitor-News, in Benson, Minn., objected, saying small-town papers have a responsibility to report on crime in their communities. Williams agreed, but said that in major cases a newspaper should tailor its resources for the challenge.
Media member Gwenyth Jones Spitz, a retired Minneapolis Star reporter, said she had published country newspapers and worked for small weeklies, and understood the lament about meager resources. “But,” she said, “this was a big story. This was worth your time and effort. And you can’t say you’re not going to call the defense attorney just because other attorneys have refused to talk to you.”
Publisher McDonnell emphasized that his newspaper is neither a watchdog nor an ombudsman, and it is up to the public to hold elected officials accountable. Spitz objected:
“How are voters ever going to know what’s going on if you don’t tell them?”
Council member Nancy Conner, former reader advocate of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, said, “Open any edition of the metro dailies and you’ll find crime stories without statements from the defense. But in this case the paper showed a real lack of courage. After seeing the change in the description of the race of the suspect, and after seeing his letter, [they could have said] “maybe we’re going to risk something by inquiring, instead of taking the safe side [by following the long-held policies the publisher spoke of earlier].”
Council member Jon Austin, a public relations counselor, asked McDonnell why the paper felt responsible for looking out for the defendant’s best interests in not publishing his letter. McDonnell said, “The first thing is to do no harm. [What] if we run something that causes the defendant to shoot himself in the foot?” He questioned the reliability of the suspect’s statements and could not guarantee that they were not libelous. Publishing official reports protects a paper from libel.
While several News Council members noted that the stories tracing the case from arrest through sentencing were accurate, others questioned a column that congratulated local investigators, a commentary by the police chief and a thank-you to officials from the rape victim. The suspect’s plea of not guilty was never reported.
“What really concerns me,” said Karen Runyon, a forensics specialist and a public council member, “is the issue of access [to the defense]. Just because you don’t have access you say ‘They know where we are, so they can call us.’ That makes me really angry. That’s what’s so wrong with so much of the media; stories are one-sided.”
Dave Hage, Star Tribune editorial writer and former reporter for small-town papers, said, ”I understand the institutional forces and momentum — it’s easier to talk to prosecutors. These are exactly the forces that our legal system has been established to protect people from and that journalists should be aware of. Even a small paper has that obligation.”
Read
Determination 139
Back
to Main Determination Index
Back
to News Council Main
Page
Want
to comment? Send a message
to the News Council.
