Letters in response to two of my recent columns raised interesting issues worth further exploration. I asked David McCraw, a Times lawyer, and David Herszenhorn, a reporter in the Washington bureau, to respond to some of them, and I have responded to another one myself.
Presumed Innocent
Re “Fairness and the Accused” (Oct. 18):
With regard to information supplied by anonymous sources in matters that will end up in the courts, there are at least four important issues to balance:
1. The public’s right to know.
2. The public’s right to receive accurate and timely information.
3. All parties’ (prosecution and defense in a criminal matter) right to a fair trial.
4. Shield laws related to anonymous source protection.
As a former deputy district attorney and freelance journalist, I’m struck by how little attention newspapers pay to the third issue — parties’ right to a fair trial. The attitude seems to be that courts and the legal system must take care of themselves and the job of the media is to get at whatever information they can to scoop the competition.
Here is what Phil Bronstein, then the editor of The San Francisco Chronicle, said in 2004 regarding that paper’s decision to publish sealed grand jury transcripts in the Balco/Barry Bonds case, which were illegally provided to The Chronicle, as it turned out, by an interested party in the case:
“We don’t believe that it’s our responsibility to enforce federal secrecy provisions surrounding grand jury proceedings. We do believe that it is our responsibility to provide as much information as possible to help people make decisions on issues of importance to them, often referred to as ‘the public’s right to know.’ ”
The trouble is that at least a portion of the public who will prejudge the case are prospectively the jurors who will be asked to judge the case for real.
Comments like the ones you referred to in the Annie Le/David Letterman cases can be construed as clearly prejudicial without necessarily advancing either issues 1 (the public’s right to know) or 2 (the public’s right to receive accurate and timely information). Decisions to publish reputational information about parties to a case (especially without revealing sources) would seem to suggest a fifth issue at stake here: necessity for nine reporters to justify their paychecks.
PATRICK MATTIMORE
Gex, France, Oct. 18, 2009
David McCraw: Mr. Mattimore raises serious and important issues, but coverage of high-profile crimes in our time has shown that we can have it both ways: vigorous reporting by journalists and fair trials for defendants.
In New York, we have witnessed the highly publicized prosecutions of celebrities, mob figures and terrorism suspects. The courts have repeatedly proved themselves capable of finding impartial and conscientious juries through rigorous voir dire, careful instruction to the jurors and at times sequestration. They have been helped, no doubt, by the practical realities of math (12 people selected from a huge pool of potential jurors) and timing (the many months that pass between the initial flurry of press coverage and the start of a trial). The near-absence of modern appellate rulings that publicity prevented a fair trial is a testament to how well the system works.
None of that excuses reporters from their duty to be fair to suspects. But journalists shouldn’t pull back from reporting information they believe is in the public interest because of a misguided fear that the courts won’t be up to their duty: providing fair trials for the accused.
=
The real problem is that The Times, like almost all news media, routinely ignores the presumption of innocence. The most common — but, as your column showed, not the only — way in which the presumption is obliterated is by quoting prosecutors who state their allegations as if they were facts.
Even in simple matters like the order of words, an assumption of guilt is frequently conveyed. Any reporter or editor should know that there is a great difference between “Prosecutors allege that Jones shot Smith because of a dispute over money,” and “Jones shot Smith over a dispute about money, prosecutors charge.” Nonetheless, the fact that this is only an allegation is routinely buried at the end of a sentence describing charges.
JONATHAN J. MARGOLIS
Brookline, Mass., Oct. 18, 2009
Clark Hoyt: I am leery of claims that The Times “routinely” does this or that, but Mr. Margolis has a point in this case. In fact, headlines, which carry an especially large punch, are often structured the way he describes. Journalistic convention says to give readers the information first, followed by the attribution. But I think Mr. Margolis makes a good case for reversing that when it comes to unproven accusations of criminal conduct.
Health Care Choices
Re “The Health Care Sprawl” (Oct. 11):
There are few newspapers remaining that truly remain objective and produce news that provides equal coverage for all sides. I had thought that I could count on The New York Times for that, but over the past year I have been deeply disappointed and frustrated.
Single-payer has a substantial following that could grow if the facts were publicized. If you will not cover single-payer, or other topics that are threatening to those who promote emotional responses over research and logic, you are aiming one more blow against democracy.
GEORGIA BERNER
New Castle, Pa., Oct. 11, 2009
=
Thanks for the acknowledgment of sparse coverage of single-payer health care reform. Now that you have realized the lacunae, might we have a strong front-page piece on “Medicare for all”?
Your recent article on ground meat has changed my life! There is no reason why an article on single-payer might not change lives as well.
THE REV. BEBB WHEELER STONE
Linden, N.J., Oct. 11, 2009
David Herszenhorn: Advocates for a single-payer system often seem to think that The Times, in its news reporting, could and should succeed where they have failed — in convincing elected leaders, from President Obama on down, that they are right. The assertion that The Times “will not cover single-payer” is incorrect. We write about single-payer, along with all other proposals for overhauling the health care system, in the context of covering news.
The president and Congressional leaders have long said they intend to build on the existing system of mostly employer-sponsored insurance, which effectively has taken single-payer off the table. But that does not mean we ignore it. The newspaper has written about single-payer systems, particularly those in Canada and Europe, as alternative models both in the newspaper and on our Prescriptions blog. Single-payer certainly gets more coverage than the polar-opposite view that government should have no role in providing health benefits.
Could we do more? Always. Still, lack of advocacy in the news pages should not be confused with lack of coverage.
