One of the things you probably won’t be reading much about in tomorrow’s newspapers is the way in which U.S. Attorney Jim McDevitt opened this afternoon’s press conference in the Foley Federal Building by lecturing and chiding Spokane journalists for their negative coverage of Spokane-area law enforcement.
“Too often,” McDevitt said, “my impression gained over eight years is that the media focuses on the bad news. And I’ve been told by members of the press, by folks here, that that’s what sells. Too often we take for granted all the good things the police do on a daily basis.”
It was an odd sermon given that the very purpose of the press conference was to announce the federal indictment of a Spokane police officer.
Take this with a grain of salt, given that the Center represents the family of Otto Zehm in a federal civil action against the city and the officer who was indicted today (as well as a half dozen other officers), but it strikes me that there really isn’t much of a gap between where public opinion is at and where the Spokane media is on this controversy. The accusation that Spokane reporters have pursued the Zehm story, and the other stories involving excessive force by local law enforcement officers, because of editorial decisions about “what sells,” is frankly a cheap and familiar insult. In my experience, when you hear public officials complaining about reporters going negative to sell newspapers or tv ads, you should sleep better knowing that the journalists are actually taking their work seriously. So far as I can tell, what Spokane journalists have done in the Zehm case, and the other cases, is doggedly pursue the questions they should have been asking on behalf of their readers and viewers.
More to the point, the fuel for this story has been the disconnect between what people can see with their own eyes and what public officials have been telling them to believe. There’s a world of difference between the city’s official statements about the Zehm altercation (that Otto caused it, and that the police who clubbed and tasered him did nothing wrong) and what the surveillance video tape capturing the arrest shows.
In following the breaking news of this story this afternoon, long-time civic watchdog and City Hall critic Dick Adams called my attention to a two year-old interview that KREM-TV anchor Randy Shaw conducted with Assistant City Attorney Rocky Treppiedi, shortly after the surveillance video of the arrest was released. KREM re-posted the interview (which includes key portions of the surveillance video) today in conjunction with its news report on police officer Karl F. Thompson, Jr.’s indictment. Click here to view the video.
In retrospect, it seems the federal grand jury finally reached the same basic conclusion that Shaw did as he pressed his questions on Treppiedi. Again, the charges today allege that officer Thompson violated Otto’s rights to “be free from unreasonable use of force by one acting under color of law,” and that the officer knowingly made false statements “with the intent to impede, obstruct and influence,” the investigation into Zehm’s death.
–Tim Connor
