Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Lawbeat

Legal News

: Lawbeat

Cautious policy foiled by citizen journos

By Mark Obbie

What good are policies against publishing the names of criminal suspects who've been arrested but not charged if the news organization that follows those standards in its main product is also publisher of a forum for citizens to post anything they please? That's the question that Minneapolis writer David Brauer explores thoughtfully and thoroughly in this reported piece on MinnPost.com, an independent news site. Brauer's story focuses on a murder suspect whose name was withheld from the Star Tribune, per the Strib's longtime policy, but then posted on the paper's buzz.mn site by a citizen. Now the paper is rethinking its policy -- because it lacks total control of its publications, and because of stiff competition to be first with crime news. Brauer looks at the value of the old policy (preserving the reputations of innocent people in cases where charges won't be filed after an arrest), at the exceptions that already had weakened it (it's honored, except when it's not), and generally takes a practical rather than legalistic view of this changing terrain.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on March 20, 2008 (boomark / email).