I spoke with an editor at the Post-Gazette Tuesday. He called
after receiving a letter to the editor I submitted based on my Monday
rant.
The gist of the conversation: the P-G (and other local media which
covered the incident) didn't identify the driver of the pick-up truck
responsible for the Friday, June 11 crash, because Pleasant Hills police
wouldn't release his name.
Some background:
In 2008, the state legislature passed the Pennsylvania Right to Know
Law, which requires certain state and local government entitites,
including police departments, not to withhold information from
the public.
The act contains certain exclusions, including one which the editor says
police departments routinely abuse.
Officials can refuse to release information if doing so would, among
other things, jeopardize an ongoing police inquiry. By claiming an
incident is "under investigation," the police can essentially shut out
the media from obtaining the details about any law enforcement activity.
This certainly wasn't the legislature's intent. Indeed, the act
specifically states, "This paragraph shall not apply to information
contained in a police blotter... and utilized or maintained by the
Pennsylvania State Police, local, campus, transit or port authority
police department or other law enforcement agency or in a traffic
report..."
A "police blotter" is defined as a "chronological listing of arrests,
usually documented contemporaneous with the incident, which may include,
but is not limited to, the name and address of the individual charged
and the alleged offenses."
In one challenge before the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, the
Pennsylvania State Police claimed it did not maintain a chronological
listing of its activity. Instead, officers filed "incident reports,"
used to describe "investigative actions." Through this little exercise
in disingenuous semantics, the state police maintained all of its
actions were recorded on incident reports, which are by their very
definition "investigative," and therefore exempt from disclosure.
Fortunately, the Office of Open Records and several Commonwealth Court
rulings have blown away this obfuscation, specifically stating the names
of drivers involved in traffic accidents do not constitute
"investigative material."
Which brings me back to my conversation with the P-G editor. He noted
that scores of stories which appear in his paper and in media throughout
PA lack basic information due to police claims of, for lack of a better
term, "investigative privilege."
How many? Click here.
And here.
And here.
The searches are inexact, and not all of the hits deal with
non-disclosure issues, but the number is nonetheless impressive- and
disturbing.
When did the police decide they would determine what constitutes
news? And why is the media, including the P-G, not shouting this
disturbing development from their front pages and "breaking news"
chyrons?
Because of the time and costs involved, the media isn't particularly
fond of dragging governments into court. But they're ignoring perhaps
the best venue available for obtaining justice: the court of public
opinion.
Instead of positioning the ubiquitous "police refused to disclose"
notice at the end of the story- or not mentioning it at all- stick it in
the lead paragraph. Or, better yet, promote it to the headline. Make the
stonewalling a major part of every story.
The public is unaware that the media has been kneecapped, because the
media isn't making an issue of it. A couple days of "Two shot, police
refuse to name victims," "One hurt in accident, police shield driver's
identity," "Police won't name burglary suspect," on every story in which
authorities aren't forthcoming, and pretty soon people will start
showing up at council meetings, calling their mayors and township
supervisors, and asking some pointed questions of those who are supposed
to serve, not conceal.
Why dwell on this?
The media- local newspapers in particular- are a major social force.
They inform and educate. And, by publicizing the names of those who
impugn or injure their communities- like the unidentified reckless
driver who decimated a bride's family the day before her wedding- deter
others from engaging in such anti-social behaviors.
By failing to pursue the matter, the media is also failing to fulfill
its public function and responsibility.
---
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who
reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he
whose mind is filled with falsehood and errors.
-Thomas Jefferson
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