As many learned Nov. 6, a UW student on an exchange study program was arrested for murder and participation in an act of sexual violence in Perugia, Italy.
It was a hot story, and from the chaos a controversy of ethical dilemmas quickly boiled to the surface.
The news tip hit our desks a few hours before the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I had stories up on the Web, but London tabloids were among the first to pick up on the gruesome murder.
For the first hour, the news room was buzzing with random facts about Knox, and some were browsing through her Facebook profile. We were both excited and disgusted at the horrific descriptions of the crime scene.
A Daily reporter, who also interns at King 5 News, heard about the event when the copy chief was explaining her research to the rest of the newsroom.
King 5 had requested the reporter come into the office that evening, and she suspected that it had something to do with the Knox story.
So in excitement, she quickly announced that she was going to tell King 5 the details we had about Knox, including giving the agency access to the Facebook account.
Only students with accounts setup with UW e-mail addresses can look at her profile and get access to its photographs.
No one knew quite how to say it, so I bluntly told her that to do so would be unethical. We trusted her with the information, because she was working with us, and now she was about to give it to the competition.
Jen Ludington, the editor, later echoed my disapproval.
I’ve always understood how it could be a problem to work at two news agencies at the same time, but this was a glaring example as to how such a situation can be difficult when you don’t expect it.
Another dilemma was that the news editor, Jeff Tripoli, was friends with Knox. I respected his quickness to remove himself from the story, and he didn’t touch anything that went to print.
(However, The Daily Telegraph interviewed him in The Daily newsroom regarding UW and Knox.)
The final dilemma that evening was of what to print. The stories coming from the London tabloids were disgustingly inaccurate and biased, and The London Times, something equivalent to The New York Times, was just as bad.
Yet, Italy was too far away to cover the story ourselves. The solution was to take the hard information from a few different news sources, including BBC, and then accurately quote her friends.
The London Times requested permission to print our story. I guess it pays to be credible.
The Daily: http://www.thedaily.washington.edu/article/2007/11/8/uwStudentHeldInCustodyInItaly
London Times at UW:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2828190.ece
London Times on Knox story:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2827877.ece
Dear Celeste
Its a small point but an important one if you are covering the UK media for other US media – there is no such thing as The London Times; the national newspaper you refer to is called just “The Times” and would I suspect resent being “localised” in this way.
I realise the New York Times is a national paper but there is no UK national paper with the word “London” in its title.
We have lots of local papers but in London – the main one is The Evening Standard which is paid for, and several other freebies like Metro.
I hope that helps, regards, Jimmy Millard
GREAT post Celeste.
Interesting post. Newspapers should be more aggressive about explaining their decision-making processes and their ethical dilemmas. I’m really glad you wrote this. Sounds as if having ethics guidelines about when and how to handle these conflicts would be useful. Did you know that some student newspapers have reader representatives who write weekly columns about things like this?
For the record, I’m with you 100 percent. No reason to share your reporting with KING. It can do its own reporting.
On other matters, a very clean post. First, only one mechanical error. Second, for someone who professes to not worry much about writing concisely, this post certain is written concisely.
The mechanical error:
“We trusted her with the information, because she was working with us, and now she was about to give it to the competition.” No comma after information because the clause that follows is essential to understanding the sentence. It tells why you trusted her. If the clause that “because” introduces is not needed to grasp the meaning of the sentence, the comma can be used.
+++
We all saw megalomaniac Tripoli mugging for all the media outlets he could: Greta on Fox, the CBS Morning Show, copious quotes to Newsweek.
The day after this post: http://kdka.com/national/Italy.student.murder.2.564325.html
‘”Jeff Tripoli, a friend of Knox’s from the University of Washington told “The Early Show” co-anchor Hannah Storm that she has been misportrayed in the media as a “party girl.”
“I don’t think there’s a harmful bone in her body,” he said. “I’ve never seen her do anything to excess that any other college student wouldn’t do.”‘
And then there’s this: http://www.newsweek.com/id/70610
‘Jeff Tripoli, a junior who says he was in Knox’s social circle, described her as “a sweetheart” and “friendly.” According to Tripoli, Knox’s boyfriend—whom she broke up with during her sophomore year—used to hold “nerdy tea parties” in his dorm room. Her quaintly eccentric crowd, says Tripoli, was “dorky in a good way.” “She didn’t dress provocatively,” he recalls. “She didn’t work it. She dressed casually, and she was friendly and easygoing and studious.”‘
Hell of a way to “distance yourself” from a story. So much for journalistic ethics at the Daily, eh?
Let me ask one more question about Jeff Tripoli. Why is he representing himself to the media as Amanda Knox’s boyfriend of last year while, at that time, he was a widely self-proclaimed homosexual?
Mr. Spencer –
You are woefully ignorant of the circumstances. A cursory look over anything I’ve said will reveal that I have not once called myself her boyfriend, nor have I publicly proclaimed myself a homosexual in the media.
My intention was never to distance myself from the incident, but to defend Amanda Knox in the absence of her closest friends, of which I am not. I distanced myself from the Daily’s coverage, which typically I would oversee, in the interest of objectivity. I chose to defend Amanda by speaking on her behalf, not by manipulating the publication I work for.
As far as my megalomania goes — I can only say that the people I talked to are only a small sample of the people that contacted me, the ones that I thought were respected enough to not indulge in biased spectacle. I was sort of wrong, but that’s beside the point. Regardless, since when is defending someone’s honor on national television “megalomania?”
The point of all this is not me — it’s Amanda. Even in the ten or so minutes I’ve spent in the public eye, it was in defense of the girl’s character, not a spotlight on my own.