Dear Reader | Words matter, especially when covering Ferguson fallout and when policing the community
The coverage of a St. Louis County Grand Jury’s decision regarding the indictment of Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson gave us two opportunities to play into some readers’ assumptions that we are biased.
On the night of the announcement, which inexplicably wasn’t made until after 9 p.m. our time, we kept watch on the reactions in Ferguson and elsewhere, with an expectation that it would get ugly.
We still had a bad feeling as our deadline approached, but early on, the protests were relatively mild, more like rallies than riots. That’s the word we used in our headline, to the validation of some reader’s perceptions that we, as members of the so-called liberal media, consider riots to be nothing more than First Amendment-protected rallies.
That, of course, isn’t true. One of the key rules of journalism is not to assume, and so we did not assume that the rallies would turn ugly as the night wore on. We were wrong, of course, regarding the outcome, but we were accurate in our wording at the time of our deadline. I wonder if we’d have been accused of assuming a First Amendment-protected rally was a riot if we’d gone with our assumptions and been wrong.
Ferguson and social media
A couple of days later, when a protest was held in Columbia, we posted something about it on our Facebook page, seeking reactions from readers about the event and the ongoing controversy.
Our word choice once again understandably played into assumptions that the journalists here have a bias against the police. The wording of the post referred to a “failure to indict,” something that clearly sounds as if we believe the Grand Jury members erred in their decision.
After speaking with the staffer who made the post, I learned that he had taken the phrase from the news article, but in condensing it for use on Facebook, had left out critical attribution about who was describing it as a “failure.” Those were the words of the protesters and should have been identified as such.
We corrected the post after reading the responses of those who saw it, but I didn’t want the incident to go unremarked in this column. It is our responsibility to be hyper-aware of assumptions many make of us, and to ensure that we do nothing with our choice of words (or our actions for that matter) to validate the belief that our coverage is biased.
Meanwhile, I thank those who took us to task on Facebook, raising painful but valid questions about our motives.
Speaking of police
While we steadfastly support those who have chosen to follow law enforcement as a career, and depend on them for our safety, we do not support efforts by some to withhold what is clearly public information.
Over the past few days, authorities have taken it on themselves to redact — or black out — portions of incident reports that explain what happened to whom and why.
In the case of a homicide Saturday in Loris, authorities released only the address of the shooting. It blacked out all information regarding what they found on arrival, as well as the name of the victim.
The incident report for the fatal shooting of a teen-age girl at Myrtle Beach Mall on Saturday night was similarly redacted, deleting all description of what police found on arrival.
To her credit, when notified of these omissions, Horry County Police Chief Saundra Rhodes contacted area news organizations with this statement.
“I want to apologize for any inconvenience that was caused by the unavailability of the PIO this past week-end and assure you that the Horry County Police Department views our relationship with our media partners as one of its top priorities. Should you have any questions please feel free to contact me at any time.”
We appreciate her recognition and candor. Residents whose taxes pay the salaries of these officers have a right to know if these were random slayings, and whether they should be concerned for their own safety as a result. They have a right to know that the police have conducted the investigations properly and have done all they can to ensure that the right suspects have been arrested.
The S.C. Freedom of Information Act makes clear that basic records are to be available to the public without a written request during business hours. Those records include “basic details of a crime and documents showing who is being held in jail,” according to the Public Official’s Guide to Compliance with South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act.
These recent incidents aside, authorities often seek to withhold information “until trial.” This can be seen as a way to hide slip-ups, playing into a perception, inaccurate though it may be, that the police are not playing by the rules in their protection of residents.
We are sure that’s not the case, just as we know that our own wording wasn’t meant to indicate bias. But perception can become reality in the minds of those who rely on us. This is a time for law enforcement agencies, and media, to be transparent, not secretive.
This story was originally published December 1, 2014 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Dear Reader | Words matter, especially when covering Ferguson fallout and when policing the community."