Don’t jump to conclusions

Editor’s note: The Police Blotter published in nearly every issue of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman lists nothing but people who are charged with, not convicted of, crimes. We print the names of people arrested for offenses such as driving drunk, burglary, domestic violence assault, driving without a license and misconduct with a weapon, and we print the names, ages, etc. of people charged with sex crimes. Charges that seem particularly heinous are reported on in greater depth, such cases involving the sexual abuse of children.

To the editor:

I’d like to take a moment to bring something to light. This particular subject seems to be swept under the rug of every person in this Valley, and in America to a larger extent.

One of the largest headlines in the news today, July 5, is the story of Casey Anthony and her “not guilty” verdict. Many people are shocked to find that she has been found not guilty. As a matter of fact, CNN, one of the largest media companies in the world, printed this:

“After less than 11 hours of deliberation, a jury Tuesday found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder and the other most serious charges against her in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter.

“But the jury convicted her on four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to law enforcement officers.”

The report from CNN is reasonable and presents the outcome of the information from the trial. However, because of the way the media handled this case, we are presented with many people across the country who are upset about the outcome of the charges. This isn’t just a singular situation; I actually have a list of about 71,623 people who think the outcome of the case was wrong. Even though Casey Anthony was found not guilty, the damage has been done due to the way this was presented by the media.

Want to know which 71,623 people I am referring to? Go to Facebook, and search for “There was no justice for Caylee,” or go to this link: http://tinyurl.com/3sskhe3.

Now that I have shown how the media can do damage to a person before the trial has even ended, I will bring up three local articles written recently by the Frontiersman.

The first story was written by Andrew Wellner and published online June 30 titled “Man charged with sexually abusing 2 girls.”

This is a prime example. The story written by the Frontiersman does not make any claims to guilt or innocence. However, any story written about a sex-offender is going to be considered completely heinous by the reader. This, in essence, one sides the story. This biases the reader to immediately think a verdict of guilt. Most readers are so shocked and offended that they go and show the article to other people and say things like, “Look what this guy did” or “What is wrong with people like this?”

A second example is a story published online July 1 titled “Wasilla man charged with more than 40 counts of sexual abuse of a minor.”

Once again this is about a sex offender. One line stood out above all the rest in this article. That line reads, “Cancel remains in custody at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $100,000 cash bail. He will be arraigned on the 45 new charges Tuesday.”

Again, there is nothing false about that statement. The catch is the word used “arraigned.” To the general public, “arraigned” might as well mean “guilty.” I am not trying to say people don’t understand the use of the word arraigned, but when it is used in this context, it biases the story.

Finally, the Frontiersman published an editorial online July 2 titled “Some acts are intolerable.”

Once again, this is an editorial that we all can agree with. I am sure we all can agree that people convicted of sexual crimes, especially sexual abuse of minors, would deserve a much more harsh punishment than our justice system currently gives out. In this editorial, the Frontiersman writes: “We must take a stand as a community, a state and a nation and say loudly and with one voice that harming children who know what it is like to feel love, pain, joy and sadness is the gravest of evils.”

I couldn’t agree more.

The Frontiersman continues: “At the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, we will work to deter these crimes by covering the stories and placing that coverage prominently on our pages. Know now that if you harm children your crimes will not remain secret. We will print your names, age, places of employment and all other details we can provide that will make it harder for you to repeat your crimes against other children.”

This is where you have messed up. By printing these names, ages, places of employment and other details about a person who is only arraigned or arrested on these charges is wrong. There have been no convictions for Lyn Roger Christian or Emmanuel Cancel. These two men are still awaiting their trials. The Frontiersman has already made a stand against these two men. The Frontiersman also went farther than that by writing an editorial claiming it will do whatever is in its power to hurt a person before trial!

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the presumption of the innocence of a criminal defendant is best described as an assumption of innocence that is indulged in the absence of contrary evidence (Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 98 S. Ct. 1930, 56 L. Ed. 2D 468 [1978]). For those of us who aren’t lawyers, that means “innocent unless proven guilty.”

For the Frontiersman to make a stand against sexual crimes is commendable. But to make a stand against people who have not yet received a conviction is despicable. As journalists, it is your job to report the story. But it is also your job to not be biased toward the story. As a journalist, you aren’t supposed to take sides.

If you aren’t aware of the Journalist’s Creed written by Walter Williams in 1906, I will bring a bit of it forth for you. One line of the Journalist’s Creed is: “I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of responsibility, trustees for the public; that all acceptance of lesser service than the public service is a betrayal of this trust.”

Nick Adair

Wasilla