This is a tough one, to be sure. Problem is, journalists essentially have to rely on the police and lousy justice system not only for information but also who is a suspect and who gets charged—which could be anyone they feel like. Journalists showing more humanity in their work (especially on the local, police-blotter-driven level) can surely help, but I don't think think there's a single solution, as Shaw alludes to in your 2006 column. Journalists will have to make judgment calls. It's also a two-way street; we need a more critically thinking public (for a slew of reasons, and also the tallest of orders) that doesn't simply take police accounts and associated news reports as gospel. "This person is charged; they must be guilty."
This quote struck me:
“In the United States,” where there is more value placed on informing the public about everything, “that’s impossible,” said Fullerton."
It's only half true. There are power dynamics at play. There's value on informing the public about everything when it comes to historically less powerful, marginalized people because our society deems them less worthy of privacy or the benefit of the doubt. There isn't this same value on widespread reporting about how police departments are generally subpar in stopping crime and bringing criminals to justice (as defined by our government). If the public were truly informed consistently about the bumbling (at best) nature of policing and stopped thinking of these people as superhuman, heroic figures, a person's life might not be forever marred by being named in a criminal case. The public would understand that innocent people get victimized by police and the justice system every day because they're inept, racist, and structured only to keep power concentrated in as few hands as possible.
Basically, it's too large and systemic an issue for it fall squarely on the shoulders of journalists. But we do also need journalists to be more cynical and critical of power, even as the powerful act as their most consistent sources of (mis)information.
I may have gone off the rails of the original post here. Ha.
This is a tough one, to be sure. Problem is, journalists essentially have to rely on the police and lousy justice system not only for information but also who is a suspect and who gets charged—which could be anyone they feel like. Journalists showing more humanity in their work (especially on the local, police-blotter-driven level) can surely help, but I don't think think there's a single solution, as Shaw alludes to in your 2006 column. Journalists will have to make judgment calls. It's also a two-way street; we need a more critically thinking public (for a slew of reasons, and also the tallest of orders) that doesn't simply take police accounts and associated news reports as gospel. "This person is charged; they must be guilty."
This quote struck me:
“In the United States,” where there is more value placed on informing the public about everything, “that’s impossible,” said Fullerton."
It's only half true. There are power dynamics at play. There's value on informing the public about everything when it comes to historically less powerful, marginalized people because our society deems them less worthy of privacy or the benefit of the doubt. There isn't this same value on widespread reporting about how police departments are generally subpar in stopping crime and bringing criminals to justice (as defined by our government). If the public were truly informed consistently about the bumbling (at best) nature of policing and stopped thinking of these people as superhuman, heroic figures, a person's life might not be forever marred by being named in a criminal case. The public would understand that innocent people get victimized by police and the justice system every day because they're inept, racist, and structured only to keep power concentrated in as few hands as possible.
Basically, it's too large and systemic an issue for it fall squarely on the shoulders of journalists. But we do also need journalists to be more cynical and critical of power, even as the powerful act as their most consistent sources of (mis)information.
I may have gone off the rails of the original post here. Ha.