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Legal News

: Lawbeat

Sound advice on when to name suspects

By Mark Obbie

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Times public editor Clark Hoyt treats one of the toughest legal reporting issues -- whether and when to identify criminal suspects by name before charges are filed -- thoughtfully and fairly. But some of the most thoughtful and fair comments come not in Hoyt's voice, but from one of his quoted sources, L. Lin Wood, a lawyer who frequently represents subjects of news stories who've sued the press. Hoyt writes:

Wood said he believes the news media should report the name of a suspect only if authorities will go on the record or if an arrest is imminent. Journalists should think hard before doing otherwise. They should test the information from leaks, treat it skeptically and, if the decision is to publish, be very careful about tone.“They’re real people,” Wood said of such suspects, “and their life as they’ve known it ceases to exist. What is said about them is devastating.”

Good advice, in the wake of the Steven Hatfill case and many others like it. When anonymous sources identify suspects who are then dragged through weeks, months, or years of frenzied media coverage, only to be exonerated later, their reputations are often beyond repair. Of course, American journalists' standards are much more liberal than in countries where, by law or custom, defendants get identified only much later in a case. And any changes in the U.S. must be voluntary, which means they'll be spotty. Hoyt ducks taking a stand, but at least he confronts the problems candidly, and distinguishes between tabloid fodder and cases of genuine public interest like the anthrax investigation. Hoyt also reveals that Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof plans to examine his own role in the Hatfill affair (his reporting was at issue in Hatfill's complaint against the Times). We'll be watching for that.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on August 17, 2008 (boomark / email).