If you missed us on MPR this morning, you could probably catch us in their audio archives.
One thing we wanted to talk about, when we were on the topic of media credibility, was this: This morning, the Strib broke the news early that undercover officer Gerald Vick was legally drunk (well, he was loaded, actually) when he was murdered last week. Naturally, an undercover cop can’t sit around drinking O’Doul’s if he’s trying to establish credibility. The terrible irony here is that, as any beat cop will be glad to tell you, around 90 percent of the people they deal with on a regular basis as a part of doing their jobs have serious alcohol issues. The vast majority of street-level crimes are committed by people under the influence of one intoxicant or another.
But what we wanted to dwell on for a few moments was the almost certain backlash that will come at the Strib for publishing this nasty bit of posthumous dirt. Our point of view is that it is most certainly legitimate news, and touches on broader issues of interest to the general public. But it can’t make the Strib or its reporters look very good, aspersing the good name of an honored cop so immediately in the wake of Vick’s, er, wake.
And we are reminded, again, of Ombud Kate Parry’s somewhat pandering approach to the idea of better serving readers–that is, “building trust” among new readerships. The fact is that the truth is very frequently an unpopular commodity, and one of the reasons the public assumes journalists are unethical cretins, whereas the truth is just the opposite, generally speaking. We think reporting hard truths is valuable to the community–it’s what newspapers are supposed to do. But we wonder what Kate Parry will make of the inevitable flood of mail accusing the Strib of urinating on the grave of a public hero. Will she read this as successfully “building trust” and “servicing” the Strib’s beloved readership? We think this is what is normally referred to as a “good teaching moment,” and we’re sure she’ll rise to the occasion.
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