I’ve been covering the courts for a long time and, like anything you do for a long time, there is always a danger of becoming lackadaisical.
A couple of weeks ago, the family of a defendant accused me of being biased in my coverage of their family member’s involvement with the justice system.
My first reaction was defensive. I try not to be, but when you’ve been threatened as many times as I have, and accused of bias by people who are obviously biased, even if they have good reason, it is difficult not to put up a bit of a wall.
It did give me pause for reflection, though. I am opinionated by nature. I also walk the fine line most of us in smaller media markets must between objective reporting and op-ed opining.
Court reporting presents a particular set of issues when it comes to objectivity.
Unlike some other areas of reporting, such as politics, where it is often, ‘he said, she said’ and let the voters decide, the courts are pretty black and white. There is still ‘he said, she said,’ but there is also a judge. And the approach to reporting on it is pretty straight forward. There’s the verdict, what the Crown argued, what the defence argued, mitigating and aggravating circumstances and the judge’s decision.
In very high profile cases, we might get a reaction from the Crown and/or defence attorneys, but rarely the accused himself. Sometimes victims, or their families (also victims), will speak out, usually about their disappointment because no sentence is ever enough for people whose lives have been shattered by a major crime.
In reflecting on the particular case, I don’t see where I diverged from that, so I do not feel like I introduced any extraneous bias beyond what the facts may have presented. Of course, for people who are involved, that can quite simply not be nuanced enough. Perhaps there are underlying elements to a story I am missing, but on a week to week basis, there is only so much a person can do.
What I can and try to do is everything in my control to be fair. And not just because of my own legal obligation not to libel someone. I make sure charges are “alleged” and that people who have been charged are “suspects”, “the accused” or “defendants until they are convicted or acquitted. I report the arguments by both Crown and defence and I try to present the facts as well as aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the things that put the facts into a human context.
I have no doubt stories I have written have had negative impacts on people’s lives. I rationalize that in terms of responsibility and public interest. I feel empathetic, but I don’t feel responsible. As I have asked before: “Who was it again who sold the cocaine to the undercover police officer?”
That is not to say, however, it does not bother me sometimes, particularly if it spills over onto innocent people, such as an offender’s family members. Unfortunately, other than being conscientious about the things I have control over, I have no control over how readers react.
I would implore readers not to visit the sins of the father on the son, but short of not reporting at all, which is not going to happen, that is also bad behaviour our publication is not responsible for.
It is one of the dangers I am constantly aware of, however. Written information by its nature exists in a bubble as much as we may attempt to contextualize it. We often dehumanize people we are reading about because they are not real to us, words on a page, not flesh and blood.
I’ve written about this in general terms before. Offenders are not “monsters” and the vast, vast majority of them are not even “criminals” per se. They are people. People who have done something wrong, or, at least something that is currently against the law. But they are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and friends with feelings and problems and hopes and dreams and, in most cases, good qualities more than bad.
It takes a lot of time to cover courts and I think I do it pretty well. I would love to do it full time, and maybe if I could, I would do it even more justice, if you’ll pardon the pun. But again, small market reporters usually have to be jacks of all beats.
Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement in everything we do and reflection is an important tool in the improvement process.
Once I get over that initial defensiveness, I am grateful to be challenged and hence grow, I hope.
