Patience in covering police news never was the hallmark of the New York tabloids, which love nothing more than to erupt over lurid crime. But last week the papers' cooperation was crucially helpful in the resolution of the Weinstein kidnapping case, the rescue of the victim and the arrest of two suspects.
The New York Post, a downscale paper and one of the most impulsive and least inhibited of the nation's dailies, is in a circulation war with the New York Daily News. Nonetheless, after it got a tip about the abduction a week before the case ended it gave up its scoop and agreed not to publicize the case.The paper bowed to a request by the police commissioner, who said that any article could endanger the life of Harvey Weinstein, the tuxedo tycoon entombed by kidnappers, who were demanding $3 million in ransom.
- A GROTESQUE happenstance almost blew the rescue even at that. In the first attempt at a ransom exchange, police cars went wailing nearby on a chase in an unrelated crime. The authorities made sure that a full account of that chase got into the media to reassure the kidnappers that the police had not been called in.
The media don't like to sit on stories, but most have shown they are willing to withhold publication when lives are imperiled. The risks of obstructing justice by publicity in kidnappings are often great - all the way from encouraging crank calls to spooking the captors into slaying the victim.
Over the years a few newspapers have gone their own way, as when the Oakland Tribune refused to honor an embargo on the news of the kidnapping of Patty Hearst in 1974. Most of the rest of the press condemned the Tribune's action and its reasoning, that there was no way to keep a lid on a case of such importance. Similarly, the New York Daily News was severely criticized a few years ago when it alone published stories on the abduction of Peter Weinburger, a baby killed by kidnappers who were scared off by the crowd at the place where the ransom money was to be handed over.
- JAPAN'S PUBLISHERS have a comprehensive policy on news of abductions. They are always proud to talk about it as a model of self restraint. Though much of the Japanese media is highly sensational, all newspapers have agreed to a blackout when it is determined that reporting would endanger the life of the abductee.
The Japanese insist on one condition: that the police keep the press informed on the development of the case. Problems arise where the case drags on or brings complications. So the policy is a matter of ongoing discussion in press circles.
With our national media taking their lumps for their frenzy in covering such stories as the Heidi ("madam to the stars") Fleiss case, the Vincent Foster suicide and the James Jordan slaying, it's good to see that they can behave when human life is at stake.
Naming juveniles
For many years most media have followed a policy of refraining from naming juveniles in trouble with the law except in unusual circumstances, as when the crime is so heinous that the juvenile court has released its jurisdiction. It is a sensible policy we ought to go slow in changing.
But many victims and even some judges and prosecutors have argued for years that shielding juveniles endangers public safety and anyway is a bankrupt policy. The argument against confidentiality has become louder with the upsurge in juvenile crime and outrage over gang warfare and such common mindless acts of terror as drive-by shootings.
An alarming picture of teen crime came through, for instance, in the figures Lois Collins, the Deseret News human services writer, presented on last Thursday's front page. She found "an emerging class of youths . . . bigger, tougher and meaner" entering the corrections system.
David Clifton, in a front page story in the Tribune July 22, summarized the debate over whether to keep juvenile court matters closed. It seemed to me he came down on the side of more openness, though he recognized the problems of "letting in more light." He emphasized that many juveniles are repeat offenders ("some delinquents wind up back in juvenile court more than 100 times") unafraid of a slap on the wrist in the justice system.
Clifton's story pointed out that only 18 states allow the public into juvenile courtrooms while others, including Utah, provide limited access to juvenile court records.
- I READ A SIMILAR piece in the Kansas City Star, also on page one, on a visit there a week ago. The Kansas Legislature this year passed a law lowering the minimum age for revealing names and records of juveniles in "major crimes" from 16 to 14. Sponsors said publicizing the names of violent juvenile offenders would embarrass youths and their parents and act as a crime deterrent.
The Star's statistics were a little less bleak than those presented by Collins. It reported that in Missouri last year cases transferred to adult court for crimes such as homicide, assault and robbery rose from 107 in 1983 to 190 a year. But it made the point that violent crimes are still a minuscule part of juvenile delinquency.
The two stories opened with a similar anecdote. In the Tribune it was about a grieving father incensed that the public was "kept blind" about a 17-year-old boy who killed his son while playing with a stolen handgun. In Kansas City it was a mother who could learn little about the 13-year-old accused of killing her 19-year-old son for his pickup truck last month.
But the answers to preventing repeats of these tragedies lie elsewhere. While one grieves with these parents, publicly naming a kid in trouble has never been a real deterrent. The rehabilitation of the juvenile should still be the overriding aim in most cases. The media also should be careful about letting themselves be used to punish by publicity.
The Deseret News policy seems sensible. Names of juvenile offenders are rarely used, never casually, always only after much inspection on how justice and the interest of the child would be best served.
Reporting rumors
The media hear lots of rumors every day, but they should deal in fact.
Last Wednesday Ch. 2's 6 o'clock news reported a rumor that 100 jobs were going to be lopped off at St. Mark's Hospital because of a change in the contractual relationship between the hospital and FHP, the health maintenance organization. Ch. 2 tried to pin down the rumor. But after the hospital refused to confirm the information, KUTV aired it anyway.
No matter how much newsgathers have invested in a story, if the item doesn't pan out, if it is premature and speculative and unnecessarily inflammatory, it ought not to be used.
Unverified rumors should be printed or aired only when they are of such transcendent importance they cannot be ignored or if the rumor has spread on the grapevine to where it has be scotched. I don't see either of these conditions in the Ch. 2 report. What's the harm in waiting until the story could be nailed down?