Journalism mantra: When in doubt, leave it out

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on June 29, 2019.

This newspapercame under heavy criticism on social media this past week as the result of a court story.

A man – whom we didn’t name, sparking the Facebook firestorm – was sentenced to just under two years in jail for voyeurism and possessing child pornography.

He was a local photographer who also worked as a part-time school bus driver in 2015, where he hid cameras in the bus in an effort to get upskirt photos of young girls.

But the bulk of his crimes consisted of downloading child pornography and setting up a camera in his bathroom at home to capture nude photos of whoever used it.

Criticism centred around the newspaper’s decision not to name the perpetrator, which is understandable given the nature of the crime and the fact he worked (briefly) with children.

Obviously, we should take comments on social media with a grain of salt, but the fact that there were so many asking the same question, suggests we should take some time to explain the editorial decision, as some went so as far to accuse the News of engaging in a “cover up.”

Courts routinely order publication bans to protect certain information from becoming public knowledge.

Often, it’s a black-and-white issue – for example, we’re prohibited from publishing details of evidence presented at a bail hearing to avoid potentially tainting a jury pool if the case goes to trial by jury.

Simple enough, but it gets a bit murkier in sex crime cases when there’s a publication ban on anything that would tend to identify any victims.

Particularly in smaller centres such as Medicine Hat, where people are far more likely to know each other without knowing the intimate details of their lives, sometimes extra caution is warranted.

When a victim is a family member, naming the perpetrator could serve to identity the victim, so while we understand the poor optics of withholding the name of someone convicted of a major crime, it’s sometimes necessary for the greater public good.

And what public value would possibly be served by naming the perpetrator in this particular instance? Will anyone be safer from knowing his name?

Some commenters pointed to similar cases when we did name the accused to point towards a supposed double standard.

In one particularly tragic case, a local doctor – whom we did name – was accused of sexually molesting a young, developmentally handicapped patient.

The patient ended up being a wholly unreliable witness who had been off his anti-psychotic medication at the time in question.

The charges against the doctor were stayed, but his reputation was in tatters.

Unfortunate as that situation was, publication bans are put in place to protect the identity of the alleged victim, not the accused (unless the accused is a youth, but that’s the subject of another editorial).

As a general rule, we do name alleged perpetrators. The exception only arises when there’s a chance that their identity could lead to that of a victim.

It’s tempting to name and shame the perpetrator and leave out any familial relations with the victims. This is an easy call to make in a big city, where they would be a stranger to most.

But in a small city like Medicine Hat, people’s lives are often intertwined in ways they wouldn’t be in a major metropolis. The last thing we’d want is for someone to find out their co-worker, neighbour or acquaintance was the victim of sexual abuse from a newspaper article.

The public has a right to know – that is the general rule – but sometimes it’s better to err on the side of caution and let people figure out any details that are left out on their own if they’re so interested in the case.

When in doubt, leave it out, as they say in journalism school.

(Jeremy Appel is a News reporter. To comment on this and other editorials, go to www.medicinehatnews.com/opinions.)