The questions pop up in one form or another about once a month: “Why is an argument with my ex-wife newsworthy?” “Doesn’t the newspaper have anything better to report than a disagreement between me and my uncle over which television show to watch?”
Then there are the times when The Courant is criticized for reporting an arrest without hanging around to report the disposition of a case.
Police and court briefs regularly raise questions – usually from those named – about what is and isn’t reported in the newspaper. A few readers have even insisted that reporters should ask the parties involved before publishing information from police and court logs.
My pat answer is the information is part of the public record. The pat problem is the newspaper and the Internet make the record more public than some would like. Rarely do editors and the accused agree on what should or should not be reported. Still, it is fair to ask what the criteria are for police and court logs to make it into The Courant. Anyone looking for consistency will find the newspaper’s approach varies from region to region.
For instance, Hartford’s lesser crimes are not cataloged in the city edition, although I frequently hear the complaint that the “In Our Towns” page relies too heavily on crime in the city. Metro Editor Andrew Julien said the format of the page, which distinguishes breaking news from community events, should help that perception, but there is an obligation to cover crime. He said violent crime is reported. “It is always a matter of what is happening on a given day. The Hartford Police Department separates the unusual from the mundane. We check the court dockets and HPD’s unusuals list.”
According to Katherine Farrish, bureau chief in the Manchester and Enfield bureaus, which covers northeastern Connecticut towns, her staff also reports “first- and second-degree arrests and major, violent incidents. We don’t write about simple DWI or drug possession arrests unless the person is a town official or prominent person. We do write up drug possession with intent to sell.” Also, Farrish said, she believes it is in the public’s interest to report on sexual assault and risk-of-injury-to-a-minor arrests.
As far as the outcome of court cases, “if we write about the arrest, we make every effort to follow up and write about the disposition in court,” Farrish said
In the Middletown area and points south, the criteria are similar. Bureau Chief Bonnie Phillips said, “The threshold is very high. Unless it’s something prominent, we don’t write about it. If a domestic involves a shooting or something, we would cover it.”
In northwestern towns, Bureau Chief William Leukhardt said, “If we had the staff, we would collect court logs. But we don’t. If the crime is unusual for the community or if it presents a danger or something happened that was so public that people would wonder and talk about it, we write about it.”
The philosophy is a bit more expansive in The Courant’s New Britain bureau, which covers central and western Connecticut towns. Bureau Chief Stephen Busemeyer’s staff produces cops logs on most days that include “most arrests, including DUIs, all types of assault (including third-degree, typically of the `family’ variety), breach of peace and drug possession.
“We do not print arrests for possession of alcohol by a minor, disorderly conduct, evading responsibility, sixth-degree larceny and most motor vehicle violations.”
Busemeyer reasons, “We work in a relatively high-crime area (relative to Avon, anyway), and the cities in our area spend a correspondingly larger portion of their time and resources fighting crime, so it’s clearly a matter of significant public impact.”
Tracking cases through the courts is another story, however. “We have no regular column where we do so,” Busemeyer said. “Keeping tabs on every John Doe who is arrested would be a Sisyphean task. That said, I agree that we would be committing better journalism if we could print the resolution to every case. The fact of the matter, though, is that it would require more resources than we have.”
Busemeyer offers one more point well worth remembering: “In our edition, the cop logs are as much about showing the readers what the police are doing as they are about who got busted.”
