Brad Harper: Crime coverage must benefit the community
When a teen-aged Emma Mannion was arrested in November 2016 and accused of falsifying a rape story, news organizations — including our sister paper, the Tuscaloosa News — published a story.
That was the first that most readers had heard of Mannion. There was no prior coverage of rape allegations. And the charge against her was a nonviolent misdemeanor. Her mugshot ran under the headline, "Police: University of Alabama student lied about sexual assault."
In interviews with reporter Keith Sharon, Mannion said articles like those cost her friends and jobs. Her telling of the story is now part of the Netflix documentary, "Victim/Suspect," which examines a pattern of women who report sexual assaults, only to be lied to by police and ultimately charged with crimes themselves.
More: Police said she lied about being raped. Now Emma Mannion is fighting to clear her name
When it comes to local journalism, few things are more important than how a news organization covers crime and public safety. Few subjects have as much interest among readers, and few things have the potential to cause as much harm to a community.
As recently as 2018, the Advertiser changed its policy to stop running arrest mugshots and photo galleries, which were among our most-viewed pages for years. Too often these mugshots weren't representative of everyone facing charges at a given time. In some communities, a mugshot is removed from the law enforcement website once that individual posts bail and is released. Any mugshot gallery would primarily feature those without the means to post bail.
New standards about what crimes we cover, how we cover them and how we treat victims, suspects and even law enforcement have been adopted across the USA TODAY Network, which includes both the Advertiser and the Tuscaloosa News, after extensive discussions about the legal, ethical, social and privacy issues involved.
At the heart of these changes was an understanding of the sizable perception gap about nonwhite communities and the people charged with crimes. It's also a frank acknowledgment that the justice system is far from perfect.
Today, we steer our reporters away from writing about misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies (though we are more willing to publish news about lesser charges if the individual is a public figure in a position of trust.)
We also acknowledge that official statements from law enforcement and others are not the same as a conclusive account of events. They have to be presented with proper context, along with coverage that provides a wider understanding of issues, events and crime in our neighborhoods, schools and businesses.
We value our relationship with law enforcement and respect the job they do every day. However, our job as journalists is to go beyond the official releases and dig deeper.
We do continue to use booking photos in some stories, including those about condemned prisoners or when police have launched a manhunt for a suspect believed to be a danger to the public. But in most cases we avoid using names of juveniles charged with crimes, even when they're named by law enforcement.
When we do use the name of a juvenile, we explain that decision to readers.
Under the new standards, Emma Mannion's story would not be treated the same way today. The charge itself likely would not warrant coverage unless it followed news of a rape investigation. We wouldn't publish a mugshot of Mannion, or even pursue a one-off story about an alleged false accusation. Any reporting would involve reaching out to multiple sources including attorneys and, if possible, Mannion herself. Even then, it would mean continuing to follow the case and give readers more context.
Our policies continue to evolve, but the goal remains the same: to fairly and accurately portray the people and events of our community while considering the outsized effect that coverage can have on people's lives.
We must continue to do that, and we will.
Brad Harper is the executive editor of the Montgomery Advertiser. Contact him at bharper1@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Brad Harper: Crime coverage must benefit the community
