Most newspapers have a ‘police blotter’ or ‘public record’ column, listing those who have been ticketed for speeding, failing to yield, etc. These are often simple, summary offenses. Pay a fine, that’s it. No appearance necessary.
Police blotter columns tell a tale from one side only, without acknowledgement of possible over-reach. Still, they’re so much a part of our press tradition that they’re likely to stay even if newspapers decline further.
It’s different, though, when longer stories in a paper rely solely on a criminal complaint as the source of information about a serious charge. It’s foolish to treat a criminal complaint as though it were the very truth of a defendant’s conduct.
Allegations may be substantially correct, tactical bargains, unwittingly erroneous, or deliberate over-reach.
It’s tempting for a reporter to print a complaint’s allegations without rebuttal or questions – (1) it’s easy, and (2) reporters on a crime beat want and need access to police and prosecutors. They may feel that unless they run stories the way prosecutors want, they’ll lose access.
Often, the story on the complaint will run without any follow-up or investigation.
It’s hard to take an independent line, but that’s journalism, or blogging. That’s the gig – take it, or play elsewhere. (Political blogging’s developed, in part, because bloggers saw that newspapers took the easiest way out – aligning with one powerful politician or another, in the city, county, state.)
Newspapers are in decline for lots of reasons, but I think this is one: too close to one party, politician, career appointee, prosecutor, activist, etc. The belief, too, that there’s no harm in that, and that representing an incumbent’s brings no conflicts, that somehow that view is objectively true, fair, or enlightened.
Our criminal law – no matter how evolved — has never been so simple.