Why People Have a Low Opinion of the Media
Cidu Bill on Apr 9th 2008
From today’s Eugene (Oregon) Register-Guardian, referring to today’s court appearance by Joel Courtney, accused of abducting and murdering 22-year-old Brooke Wilberger in 2004:
Citing respect for the Wilberger family, [the prosecutor] did not say whether they planned to attend Courtney’s arraignment or trial. Calls to the family were not returned Tuesday night.Anybody fail to see a problem here?
(More information on this case is on the Crimeweek site)
Filed in Bill Bickel, Brooke Wilberger, media, newspapers | 9 responses so far
renita Apr 9th 2008 at 03:50 pm 1
actually, unless i’m missing something, i don’t see a problem. i was a newspaper copy editor for four years. it’s a reporter’s job to try to contact the involved parties, even in difficult circumstances. and even if *you* see something wrong with trying to contact the family — not pestering them, mind you, just trying to contact them — i guarantee you that if they hadn’t put that sentence in, some reader out there somewhere would’ve said “why didn’t they call the family!!!”
Cidu Bill Apr 9th 2008 at 05:33 pm 2
I just find an odd disconnect between the reporter explicitly saying the prosecutor is withholding information out of respect for the family, then going on to say “but we tried to find out anyway.”
As an editor myself, I’d say “mention one thing or mention the other, but not the two together.”
Blurgle Apr 9th 2008 at 08:19 pm 3
Then again, the prosecutor may be saying, “I’m not going to put words into the family’s mouths. It’s their right to decide whether they’ll tell you, not mine.”
Kaitlyn Apr 10th 2008 at 09:36 am 4
It would have sounded less invasion-of-privacy-y if the last sentence had said “they declined to comment” or something. Or would that be unethical, because they would have commented a blue streak if they’d answered the phone?
Frosted Donut Apr 10th 2008 at 10:57 am 5
“Declined to comment” is different than “calls not returned.” They can only decline if they were contacted.
I’m with renita–if the reporter had been able to reach the family, it might have added a human dimension to the story. Since it was a judgment call on the part of the prosecutor not to release the information, readers might reasonably wonder if the paper had even tried to reach the family or were just printing whatever the prosecutor told them.
Ed Whitson Apr 10th 2008 at 12:23 pm 6
Also, relatives of victims often (but not always) want to talk to reporters — they want to describe the person they knew. It’s only after the funeral that most relatives get angry at a reporter’s questions — their attitude is that once there’s been a funeral, it’s over and time to move on.
rabrab Apr 10th 2008 at 03:03 pm 7
As a member of a murder victim’s family, I see no problem at all. It’s not the prosecutor’s place to announce to the press whether we were going to be present at the arraignment, and it is the newspaper’s job to at least attempt to find out. “Did not return calls” means that they did just that: made an attempt, but stopped short of stalking the family to get an answer.
Rather than “mention one or mention the other, but not the two together,” I think the proper balance is “mention both or mention neither, but not only one.”
Lapsed Librarian Apr 11th 2008 at 03:01 pm 8
Well, I see a possible problem with “Calls to the family were not returned Tuesday night.” I suppose that *could* be the case, but it seems more likely that what they meant is “Calls to the family Tuesday night were not returned.”
Cidu Bill Apr 11th 2008 at 03:45 pm 9
I suspect what the article meant, LL, was that AS OF TUESDAY NIGHT, calls had not been returned.