One of the stories that I didn’t see in The News & Observer’s coverage of the Duke lacrosse case last week was this: How well did The N&O cover the Duke lacrosse case, start to finish?
That’s been a matter of extensive discussion on the blogs and in the communications I’ve received from readers over the year-plus since the case began. Most of the comment has been critical. Shortly after the announcement Wednesday that the charges had been dropped, my phone was ringing from people wondering when The N&O was going to apologize to the players and families. Let’s put on our 20-20 hindsight glasses and see how the paper did.
Leading the investigation
The newspaper has much to be proud of. It may be said without fear of challenge that The N&O led all other media in bringing to public attention the problems with the prosecution’s case that ultimately led to the dropping of charges and to a State Bar investigation of District Attorney Mike Nifong. The N&O was the paper that broke the rape investigation story in the first place, back on March 24, 2006, and it followed with a succession of firsts in the investigation of the prosecution’s case. Here are some key disclosures made by the paper’s reporters:
• Nifong’s apparent violation of State Bar rules for speaking out about the case.
• The police department’s violation of its own procedures for the photo lineup in which the accuser identified the players who were charged.
• The arrest of the taxi-driver who served as an alibi for one of the players.
• Discrepancies between the prosecutor’s public statements about the case and facts in his own files.
• Problems with the evidence upon which the prosecution based its case, including the accuser’s changing versions of the alleged assault.
“They did a number of detailed factual pieces,” said Joe Kennedy, criminal law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and a fellow at the Parr Center for Ethics. An analysis of Nifong’s case by reporter Joe Neff, Kennedy said, “was done like a legal brief. It took an enormous amount of work to check all those things. It was the best sort of journalism. It’s not recycling what people say. It’s pulling together information yourself and putting it out there.”
The N&O also did in-depth profiles of Nifong and the accuser that disclosed information about them that had not previously been public.
Fairness in editorials
On the editorial pages — operated separately from the news reporting — the paper raised early questions about the fairness of the prosecution. In two editorials in May, the paper questioned the police lineup procedure and the prosecutor’s refusal to meet with and hear evidence from the defendants’ attorneys. “For justice to be served, certainly the accuser deserves a vigorous prosecution on the basis of the evidence,” one editorial said. “But if the alleged attackers’ right to fair treatment is abused, any case against them could, and should, melt away under the courts’ scrutiny.”
It should be noted also that an early editorial called for canceling the lacrosse season, which Duke President Richard Brodhead subsequently did.
Early missteps
I thought there were serious missteps in the news coverage in the first weeks. Among them:
• The March 25 interview with the accuser, which allowed her to make anonymous accusations against the players. The headline, “Dancer gives details of ordeal,” reflected a sympathetic tone in the story.
• Delay in publishing the accuser’s prior arrest record, after laying out in detail the arrest records of 15 lacrosse players on minor rowdiness charges (none of whom were charged in the rape case.) The paper also published a poster showing all 47 lacrosse team members, most of whom were not charged.
• Two early columns by Ruth Sheehan that took an accusatory tone toward the players — “Members of the men’s lacrosse team. You know. We know you know.” — and called for the cancellation of the season and the firing of the lacrosse coach. Sheehan acknowledged in a column in January that she had been “naive.”
• Early stories referring to the accuser as a “victim.”
I would say that, taken together, The N&O’s early coverage contributed to the narrative of racial/class/gender victimization that the local community and the national media seized upon. Publication of the accuser interview on a Saturday morning sent people into the streets protesting against the players and Duke.
John Drescher, The N&O’s managing editor, agreed that the early story was of the accuser as victim. “I think that the probable cause of that was the situation that the Duke lacrosse players, the parents and the lawyers were not talking for the first week of the story,” he said. “As soon as the representatives of the lacrosse players said there was no sexual assault that night and started offering information, then the story shifted.”
In the instances above, The N&O could have performed better. But the paper, more than any other media outlet, also did the reporting that led to changing the focus to prosecutorial misconduct.
“I think The News & Observer has done a really terrific job in covering the lacrosse story,” said Wade Smith, attorney for former defendant Collin Finnerty. “I think at first The News & Observer went for (the accuser’s) story. But The News & Observer has done careful and very responsible reporting after the initial part of the coverage ended and The News & Observer started to see the light.” He said the ultimate outcome “perhaps” would not have been accomplished without the reporting by The N&O and other papers.
What’s the takeaway from this unhappy episode in North Carolina justice? People inside The N&O already are debating what lessons are to be learned. One was suggested to me the other day by Thomas Rosenstiel, executive director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a respected press research center in Washington.
He said the proliferation of alternative sources of information makes it all the more important that newspapers be the “authenticators” of information, “the place where we’re going to help you sort out the truth.”
“Our job as journalists is to be skeptical of what we’re being told and not take things at face value. Readers expect skepticism and caution, and we need to supply that.”
In that 20-20 rear-view mirror, in the case of state v. Duke lacrosse, more skepticism would have been in order.
