On Jan. 28, the Classic Center, in downtown Athens, was hosting the Career Fair. I decided to go to the fair in search of a summer internship and overall practice in meeting prospective employers. Each person was given a list of employers and to my delight someone representing my school district was there, Liberty County School System. I stopped by the table and introduced myself to the assistant superintendent, Jason Rogers. My mother works at an elementary school, so when I mentioned her name he said that he knew her very well. Rogers left me with a good impression of him. He came off as understanding, open, friendly and a gentleman. After the Career Fair, I called my mother and told her about my encounter with the assistant superintendent; she was excited that I met him.
I received a phone call a week later from my mother. She told me that Rogers was charged with DUI on Jan. 23, five days before I met him at the Career Fair. Her first thought was that because the story was delayed in coming out that someone was out to get him. Being a journalism major, her suspicion wasn't enough for me to go by. I began to wonder why the story took so long coming out in the paper. On Feb. 4, the Coastal Courier, my hometown paper reported on the story.
This story about Rogers is newsworthy. He holds an important position in the education system and influences a lot of the decision-making. But why did the story not appear in the paper until a week later? The article states that the Coastal Courier was unable to obtain a copy of the incident report but the newspaper still had knowledge about the charge. Though the paper could not give exact details about where and how it happened, it seems that they still knew about it. Did the person who does the police blotter overlook it? Did the paper know about the charge but decided to wait? If so, why? As editors, we know that there are codes of ethics we should follow by. The Society of Professional Journalism gives a code of ethics that journalists should follow. In the code it discusses minimizing the harm on whom stories are about or affects and having compassion. Was the delay an act of compassion? With a story about a prominent figure of the public, editors must consider the amount of harm and backlash the person could face. The code also says to seek truth and report it. Even though the story has as much obtainable information, just because it's truth does it mean that it has to go straight to the presses? Or can the truth just wait?
It's up to the editor to ultimately decide on the ethics and what is newsworthy. I still wonder what was going through the mind of the editor. A simple answer could be that no one knew until Feb. 3 or Feb 4. However, if they knew before, what was the delay and why? If I was the editor I probably would have printed it the next day, with the information that I had, with of course all decency and compassion.
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI like how you brought the SPJ code of ethics into this post and raised some of the issues editors might consider in deciding whether, or when, to print a sensitive story. In this case, I don't see how harm would be minimized by waiting a week to publish. The effect on the official's reputation is the same on Feb. 4 as on Jan. 23.
Without other evidence, I'd be inclined to support the simplest explanation, which is that the paper didn't find out about the arrest until shortly before the story was confirmed and published. The fact that an incident report wasn't released raises questions in my head of whether officials, rather than journalists, were trying to keep this arrest quiet. It seems as likely as not that this story got out through word of mouth and eventually reached the paper, which then confirmed and published. There are certainly plenty of unanswered questions in this story, which the paper will hopefully follow up on.