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Editorial
Station has right reaction to being part of the story
Thursday, October 27, 2016
It's every reporter's nightmare.
No, not making a mistake in a story, that's a serious issue, but something that can usually be corrected in the next news cycle, if not sooner.
This is something worse: Becoming part of the story.
That's the situation NTV News found itself in this week, when a mistrial was declared after the Kearney television station inadvertently aired video footage of potential jurors in a Norton County murder trial.
Bobby Tallent, 37, faces multiple charges including first-degree murder in the death of 47-year-old Joseph Sweet, whose body was found March 2015 in a park in Norton, Kan.
The Nebraska television crew assumed it could videotape in the hallway outside the courtroom, as is common practice in Nebraska.
Kansas law, however, prohibits photographs or video of jurors. The judge declared a mistrial after he found out about the news broadcast, resetting the proceedings back to zero.
A hearing is set for Nov. 2 on a motion for a change of venue as well as setting dates for a new trial.
The press is taking a lot of abuse this election cycle, blamed in all quarters for skewing the issues if not spreading outright misinformation.
But nowhere do the media play a more important role than in the courtroom, where they can shed light on the workings of the judicial system in an effort to ensure justice is done.
That role was reaffirmed in the landmark Nebraska Press Association vs. Stuart case, where the Supreme Court guaranteed press freedom to cover trials without prior restraint by judges.
With that freedom comes responsibility -- as well as the danger mistakes will be made.
But the public is not served by news organizations that are too timid to do their job, or prevented from doing so by the overreach of authorities. Absent coverage of important stories such as murder trials, readers and viewers will fill in the blanks with speculation and error that is too easily spread through today's social media.
In truth, the first we heard of the Norton County mistrial was in the television station's own report and its apology to the jurors, court and community for disrupting the proceedings.
It was a timely, responsible and professional response to a difficult and embarrassing situation, and a good example for other media to follow.