Fixing Free Press A-C bias

By Joel Thurtell

Normally, I’m not in favor of outsourcing, especially when it involves covering local news stories.

How could reporters in, say, Bangalore, India have enough background, culturally and politically, to report accurately and concisely on an American news story?

Why, even in Pennsylvania, where the Detroit Free Press’s beloved Yak feature now is written, it’s not likely they have the feel of the community hereabouts in Detroit.

Normally, familiarity with the beat would be my concern.

But what if the American reporting were too wrapped up in, too influenced by, local culture and politics?

What if local reporting were too intellectually hamstrung by American-style journalistic precepts to accurately and concisely report a local news story?

That seems to be the case in the  Detroit Free Press coverage of the David Ashenfelter-Richard Convertino standoff in U.S. District Court.

I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts how Free Press staffers seem to have violated the paper’s own ethical guidelines in their coverage of Convertino.

By the way, JOTR just learned that a federal judge on April 16, 2009 ordered Ashenfelter to answer questions put to him by Convertino’s lawyers. Free Press attorneys are said to be “disappointed.” I’d say the judge did the right thing.

The face-off between Ashenfelter and Convertino dates back to January 2004 when the reporter received from U.S. Department of Justice officials illegally leaked information about Convertino and wrote it into a newspaper story. It doesn’t seem too much of a leap of faith to conclude that the feds wanted to tarnish Convertino before indicting and trying him for alleged improper conduct in a terrorism prosecution.

The tactic backfired when a jury acquitted Convertino. Now he’s suing the feds and wants Ashenfelter to name the people who anonymously maligned him. But Ashenfelter is denying Convertino his day in court. First, he claimed the First Amendment protected him, but a judge said, nah, Dave, you can’t hide behind the First to keep from testifying in what might yet be a criminal case.

The reporter — or rather his newspaper’s attorney — is using the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, saying that naming names might incriminate him.

The initial story used a devious wording to describe the motives of the government leakers. The paper led the public to believe the leakers were whistleblowers in danger of losing jobs — fearing for what the paper called “repercussions.” In fact, it’s hard to imagine the leakers being punished for leaking,at least not back in 2004 when it happened. IOt is pretty clear that whoever did the leaking was in a position to know the inside poop re federal plans to indict Convertino. The leakers may even have been in charge or at least in positions of power in Justice.

The Free Press just can’t seem to accurately cover the story. As I pointed out in my last post, there seems to be some internal dispute at the paper about whether Ashenfelter might be fined or jailed for contempt of court.

And then there’s the question of whether Convertino was charged, tried and acquitted for alleged prosecutorial misbehavior.

If you believe Free Press chronologies of the Ashenfelter-Convertino case, there was no trial, no acquittal.

The first time I noticed this ridiculous omission was in a February 12, 2009 box purporting to list significant events in the case. Failure to mention Convertino’s trial and acquittal negated the whole purpose of the box, since his acquittal was the event that made possible Convertino’s suit against the government and his quest for Ashenefletr’s testimony.

It happened again on March 5, when a Free Press summary of events omitted Convertino’s trial and acquittal.

Why would the newspaper leave out such a crucial piece of information?

Maybe the fact that Convertino had to face the trauma of a trial, along with the irreparable loss of reputation, damage to social and professional standing, adds gravity and pathos to his side of the story. Kind of takes the focus off the reporter’s self-imposed plight and adds weight to the reality that a major newspaper played loose with this person’s reputation in return for a hot story. Maybe the paper doesn’t want to dwell on that aspect of the story.

The acquittal is pivotal and should not be left out of any responsibly-written chronology.

Then there is the fines and jail time. I mentioned this too in an earlier blog post, how I learned from a Free Press February 11, 2009 web post of Convertino’s request that Ashenfelter be fined on an escalating scale up to $5,000 a day. Later, I went back to the story and found no mention of a fine. Why would that fact be subsequentlky erased from the report? It’s a bit too Orwellian for me.

As Goldfinger warned James Bond, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.

Whatever the intentions, distorted reports are being sent to readers by reporters and editors too much in the thick of their own story.

I have a solution: The Free Press can treat its Ashenfelter-Convertino coverage the way it’s reporting for the Yak.

Outsource it.

Hire a team of reporters from the United Kingdom to cover the Ashenfelter-Convertino case in the Free Press. Or maybe find some reporters in Bangalore who’d be willing to tackle the assignment.

Wherever they come from, the outsourced reporters should be willing to look at the case without influence from reporters and editors at the Detroit Free Press.

In this case, outsourcing may be the only way to ensure some semblance of neutrality, at least from the newspaper that helped create the case.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com