Publishing a news story on a difficult divorce is intrusive. However, entertainment gossip columns aside, most people have little to fear that their breakups will appear in news columns.
Sometimes, though, editors decide that citizens have a need to know about the unpleasant, even unsavory state of another persons affairs.
These kind of decisions can be agonizing. The direction they take might also be revealing about the professional approach within the institution.
A situation of that kind occurred a week ago in the Seattle-Tacoma area.
On Friday, April 25 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Crystal Brame, the wife of Tacoma Police Chief David Brame, had filed divorce papers in February in which she accused him of physical abuse and intimidation with his service revolver.
In his filings in March, the police chief denied the accusations and said that his wife had physically abused him.
Crystal Brame had requested a personal protection restraining order, but a hearing on the matter had been delayed. She said in the request, I do remain very afraid of my husband. He in turn cited her ferocious temper.
Broadcast news followed up that Friday with its stories. A local, online magazine was first to publish on the case with a story a few days before the P-Is story.
The News Tribune of Tacoma, which covers the chiefs home turf, followed the other media, publishing a story on Saturday morning.
Later on that same Saturday, the chief shot and critically wounded Crystal Brame as they talked in a Gig Harbor shopping mall parking lot. He then killed himself. Their two children, 8 and 5 years of age, were nearby. Crystal Brame died Saturday, one week after the shooting.
In Sunday editions following the shooting, David Zeeck, executive editor of The News Tribune, told its readers that the newspaper had known about the court filings for two weeks.
Editors didnt want to smear either Brame, he said, and they decided to hold off on a story until one of the Brames filed a police complaint or obtained a personal protection order. Reporters continued investigating the allegations.
Karen Peterson, a senior editor for The News Tribune, said last week that editors will review whether they could have pushed harder for a story. In retrospect, she said, I feel now that we could have done more.
Ken Bunting, executive editor of the P-I, said that he and his editors decided that David Brames position raised the alleged criminal acts to a level of legitimate public interest. We are, he said, talking about the highest ranking municipal public safety official in Tacoma.
Even so, Bunting said, We think long and hard when we write about unproven allegations.
Since the shooting, published reports have tied David Brame to alleged use of force with another woman years earlier.
Bob Steele, a journalistic ethics expert with the Poynter Institute, said, It is human for editors to wrestle with the potential consequences of publishing a story about a police chief just as editors wrestle with publishing a comparable story about a less prominent person.
However, Steele added, a police chief has the professional obligation to protect the safety of citizens in his community. If a chief is accused of harming someone else … that certainly moves it into the category of important information that citizens need to know.
That includes publishing before the accusations are substantiated.
The reality is that journalisms role in reporting the truth includes presenting multiple pieces of a large puzzle at different times, Steele said.
In this case, the proper decision by the P-I was to publish. Tacomas citizenry had a right to know about the allegations of violence.
David Brames actions were sad and shocking, but they did not reflect on the validity of the P-Is decision. Rather, they bore out the seriousness of a situation that might have become public sooner, but unfortunately did no
