Comments by awasher
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Posted on May 3 at noon (Suggest removal)
It's worthwhile of the News-Miner to evaluate its handling of online comments. I hope the News-Miner also considers the ethics of its own commentary, which appears implicitly in its regular Public Safety Report.
The Safety Report is a community service insofar as it alerts residents to crime trends. It may even entertain. However, the Safety Report routinely prints the names of the accused, who, as Mr. Bostian takes care to note, have yet to be proven guilty and who deserve the benefit of the doubt until they have their day in court. Yet, Mr. Bostian says he is aware that guilt is often assumed by readers.
Rarely, if ever, does the New-Miner follow-up on the charges it reports in the Safety Report in order to clear someone's name. In an age when employers regularly and easily seek information about job applicants over the Internet, a single mention in the Safety Report is enough to destroy someone's livelihood. And not just locally. Any of the individuals named in the Safety Report can be Googled indefinitely. Try it and see for yourself. If you are unfortunate enough to be charged with a crime in Fairbanks, yet are declared innocent at a later date or the charges are dropped, the aura of guilt may follow you online to the Lower 48, around town, and financially and personally for years to come.
Of course, these names are public information and are available to anyone who asks for them at the police station. But the names' mere availability does not justify the News-Miner's wholesale promotion in print and especially online of them. Many of these individuals may never be found guilty of a crime. The public benefit of the Safety Report would not be diminished by redacting the names printed there.
At very least, the News-Miner should undertake a systematic evaluation of the legal fate of the accused whose names it publicizes to determine how accurate of a picture is portrayed to the public. DUI and domestic violence charges, for example, are often resolved without a finding of guilt. Otherwise, the News-Miner should perform due diligence and follow-up on every case it reports -- just as it does for the higher-profile cases printed on page A-1.
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Posted on May 4 at 10:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
A fair response, but the public benefits of printing names -- without which the Public Safety Report "wouldn't be worth spit" -- aren't stated. What remains are the allegations of the police, or as explained, the DA.
To assess whether it is worth risking harm to innocent people's families and/or employment prospects, an explanation is needed of the benefits of publishing the names of the accused for the sorts of crimes commonly covered in the Safety Report.
On Using names in the public safety blotter