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WaPo oversells (or under-proves) corporate crime story

By Mark Obbie

The Washington Post's Carrie Johnson reports today on an end-of-year rush on settlements between the Justice Department and corporations charged with wrongdoing. It's a timely scoop, with ample examples to justify its claim that this is happening. A shakier aspect of the story is why the settlements are occurring. Johnson asserts in her lede that "lawyers and interest groups" see politics -- a clearance sale before a new, tougher-on-corporate-crime administration takes office. But only one named source, a former IRS lawyer, is quoted to support that claim. Johnson cites "three lawyers who routinely represent companies before the Justice Department" and a named white-collar-crime academic blogger has having noticed the increased activity, but none of them -- named or not -- is quoted as attributing it to the transition. Johnson's anonymous chorus of "corporate lawyers and public interest groups" returns in the story to suggest other reasons for the spike in activity -- mainly a PR scheme to fly under the public radar during the holidays -- while the DOJ gets a chance to deny anything nefarious is going on. Another element of the lede that goes unproven: that there are more cases in the pipeline to be settled before Jan. 20. Johnson is a well-sourced pro on the beat. I have little doubt that she did a ton of reporting to arrive at these conclusions. The trouble is that her story lacks transparency, and thus loses credibility if a careful reader gets hooked by the lede but finds little to justify it in the story.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on January 02, 2009 (boomark / email).