If Print Falls, Will Police State Arise?

Graphic by TJ Sullivan

David Simon, creator of "The Wire," writes eloquently in The Washington Post of the "halcyon days when American newspapers were feared rather than pitied," a distant memory from where print journalism is today.

Simon used to be a crime reporter in Baltimore, which of course means he frequently confronted police officials who held onto information like it was money, at least until some smart reporter backed by a big newspaper shined the light of open records laws in their eyes (sometimes with the help of lawyers and judges).

Any reporter who's ever worked the cop beat, even for a short time, surely identifies with what Simon has to say about the damage that's being done to civil liberties and the erosion of accountability as a result of newspaper cutbacks and closings.

The examples and comparisons he cites are sure to shock anyone who takes the time to look. Likewise, they provide yet another example of why volunteer bloggers, or independent new media journalists can't hope to fill the void:

To be a police reporter in such a climate [the halcyon days] was to be a prince of the city, and to be a citizen of such a city was to know that you were not residing in a police state. But no longer -- not in Baltimore and, I am guessing, not in any city where print journalism spent the 1980s and '90s taking profits and then, in the decade that followed, impaling itself on the Internet.

Simon elaborates by citing recent drastic changes within the Baltimore police department, changes that went unchecked by the press, changes that, in an ideal situation, would have been heartily challenged by both the cop reporter from the local daily, as well as by that same paper's editorial board.

No longer do the Baltimore police automatically identify officers who shoot or kill someone. Now officers who shoot people will only be named if they're determined to have done something illegal or unwarranted "in the [police] commissioner's judgement."

Police officials apparently justified this by citing the 23 threats made against officers last year, an irrelevant statistic considering none of these threats involved lethal force and that there are 3,000 cops in the city.

In addition, Simon reports that union suits dredged up the revenge killing of an officer involved in a shooting in 2001. Never mind that the fatal attack on the officer had nothing to do with a name being published in a newspaper. Simon says it occurred when the officer, who had testified in open court, was later recognized in a bar by someone related to the case.

"The commissioner was allowed to stand on half-truths. Why? Because the Baltimore Sun's cadre of police reporters -- the crime beat used to carry four and five different bylines -- has been thinned to the point where no one was checking Bealefeld's statements or those of his surrogates."

There's more. Find it at The Washington Post.

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-- TJ Sullivan

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