Three veteran journalists agreed Friday that coverage of law enforcement policy reforms and systemic injustices must outlast the current moment and take precedence over crime blotter news and clickbait misdemeanors that sap newsroom resources and perpetuate stereotypes.
The National Press Club Journalism Institute and
News Leaders Association
hosted a video program featuring
Michael Days
of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
Libor Jany
of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and
Jamiles Lartey
of the Marshall Project for a conversation on “Covering Justice: Reimagining the cops, crime, courts beats.”
While acknowledging that George Floyd’s killing by police in Minneapolis and the ensuing social justice protests have captured the nation’s attention, the three conceded that that consciousness could be fleeting.
"The better question to me is, will we remain engaged beyond that sort of flash of interest in the general public and will we continue to highlight these stories when potentially folks' attention span has moved on," Lartey said. “I think the question is, do we have the interest and the mentality to stick with it. I hope so, I don't I don't know if I can answer it in the affirmative.”
Key points from their hour-long conversation:
- Covering protests is one thing; covering the broader issue of criminal justice requires long-term commitment.
- Newsrooms need to rethink crime coverage and allow reporters to examine crime and policing through thorough reporting.
- Journalists should be mindful of language used by police to avoid accountability.
- Local reporters need to carry out independent reporting that doesn’t rely simply on police as sources and national reporters must resist the temptation to swoop in to a community without regard for local issues and sensibilities.
Sticking with the issue
Lartey
: It takes more stick-to-it-iveness to cover your local police department, to cover police reforms, to cover the less public and less performative side of these questions. So, can we? I think, yes, it's certainly something that people in our industry have the skill set to do — to file for public records requests, to analyze statutes that local city governments are writing in response to the public outcry — and say ‘Hey, is this going to work? Or what will be the side effects of passing a city ordinance or a federal law that will do that?”
Jany
: I get the sense through talking with my colleagues that the burden really falls on the reporters to lean on management, lean on the editors months down the road … after the world's gaze has sort of drifted to the next story. So I'm hopeful, but a lot of the burden is going to fall on reporters to sort of push back and ensure that some of these changes do stick.
