Wayward headline catches attention of readers

TONY DODERO

OK, dear readers, try to stay with me this week as I take on a couple

meaty topics.

The first has to do with a wayward headline on Friday, “Jury sees

videotape of gang rape,” that caught the attention of a few readers,

a few of us in the newsroom and at least one good friend of the paper

out there who was a deputy district attorney in a previous life.

The problem with the headline was simple: until a jury decides a

gang rape occurred in the much-publicized case of Greg Haidl, Keith

Spann and Kyle Nachreiner, there has been no gang rape on video.

There are two versions of the events that happened that fateful

day in July nearly three years ago.

The alleged victim in the case, known as Jane Doe, contends that

she was sexually abused and raped by the three teens.

The three teens maintain she was a willing participant, who was

there to drink and do drugs and had consensual sex with two of them

prior to that day.

Thus our headline was wrong and “does the defendants a tremendous

injustice and creates bias through pre-judging guilt,” wrote George

Jeffries, a former Orange County deputy district attorney.

“If I had to come up with five criticisms of your excellent

publication, at least one would be that your headlines are not

properly edited and are often sensationalized beyond the scope of the

underlying story,” Jeffries wrote. “I have been a victim on a couple

of occasions over the years, and this kind of journalism just throws

objectivity out of the window.”

So acknowledging that our headline missed the boat this time,

let’s take up that much maligned craft for just a minute.

Headline writers have a difficult task. They need to sum up the

story and tell it to the readers in a very few words, most times less

than a half a dozen.

It’s not easy to do and most good headline writers I know,

including the one who composed the aforementioned version, struggle

to come up with just the right words. Compound that with other

factors like deadlines and late hours and the general fogginess from

having copy-edited hundreds of lines of news stories and it’s easy to

see how things can go wrong.

I’ve been there. I know.

But I also know something else about headline writers. As the ones

who copy-edit our stories, they clean up countless errors that our

writers make, something the readers will never know.

The readers only see the mistakes and the miscues. They don’t see

the tremendous volume of copy that these editors need to read and

keep clean of grammar errors, spelling errors, typos and potential

libel.

I and every writer and reader of this paper really are indebted to

them for making our papers better each and every day.

I’m not trying to make excuses for them -- just trying to put

things in perspective.

Let’s get back to the issue that my friend George Jeffries brought

up.

I was having lunch with one of the business executives here in the

Times Community News division on Friday. He and I were discussing the

faulty headline and, more pointedly, the Haidl trial itself.

He made a point to me that I hadn’t thought of very much, but that

in retrospect may need some further examination.

Why, he asked, do we decline to name the alleged victim of a rape,

but always name the alleged suspect of a rape?

The answer to first part of the question is easy. Rape is

considered a crime that can bring upon such humiliation to the victim

that newspapers and other media outlets across the country have

declined to use their names. It’s not that we don’t have a right to

see the names; we just choose not to print the names.

But my business colleague and lunch mate pointed out that there

have been occasions where the alleged victims have indeed fabricated

the rape charges, for revenge, money or other purposes. At that

point, it’s too late for the alleged suspect, whose name has been

smeared and besmirched, especially in high-profile cases such as

Haidl.

Jeffries made that point in a letter he wrote to me after the

first Haidl trial, which ended up in a hung jury leaning toward

acquittal. He noted that years ago, he was involved in a

much-publicized trial.

“Since then, friends call occasionally after reading the newspaper

to solicit my opinion on the guilt or innocence of defendants being

prosecuted in the courtroom, while also being tried in the court of

public opinion,” he wrote. “I usually tell them this: No matter how

sensational the charges and the alleged supporting facts, the

defendant is presumed innocent (that is, not guilty of a crime) until

his guilt as to the alleged crime is established beyond a reasonable

doubt to 12 jurors, whose decision must be unanimous. The question,

in a criminal court, is not whether the accused did the dastardly

deed alleged, but whether the prosecution can meet the high standard

of proof required to protect the innocent.”

So how should we report high-profile trials like Haidl? Or how

about an even bigger case, like that of pop singer Michael Jackson,

who stands accused of molesting a young boy.

If we name the alleged suspect, shouldn’t we name the alleged

victim? Should we not name any of them?

I know some journalists believe that by not naming alleged or real

rape victims, the media serves to further stigmatize the person.

Of course, if we choose option No. 2, then there is no story to

tell. The readers wouldn’t know about Haidl or Jackson or countless

other trials that we report on regularly.

Jeffries had this suggestion:

“Editors of community newspapers should seriously consider turning

down the volume during the trial period while reporting with reserve

in the inner pages the respective contentions, which the jury and

judge must resolve,” he wrote. “Among the dozens of criminal and

civil cases tried weekly in this county, editors should consider all

readership, including younger readers, when deciding which ones, if

any, should be emphasized before judgment by sensational headlines

and front-page reporting.”

So maybe that’s the answer. Keep these stories off the front page.

At least until a conviction comes down.

As you can see, there isn’t an easy solution to this conundrum.

But as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

TELL IT TO THE EDITOR

* TONY DODERO is the editor. He welcomes your comments on news

coverage, photography or other newspaper-related issues. If you have

a message or a letter to the editor, call his direct line at (714)

966-4608 or the Readers Hotline (714) 966-4664, send it by e-mail to

tony.dodero@latimes.com or dailypilot@latimes.com, or send it by mail

to 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.