The Norwich Bulletin on Julie Amero
I’m somewhat concerned about some things at the Norwich Bulletin, the newspaper in Norwich, Conn., the site of the Julie Amero case. For some reason, the Bulletin is removing a good deal of its content related to the case. Some of it is going to the (pay) archives and some is disappearing.
This is a Bad Thing because it’s an ongoing case and an ongoing discussion, and the Bulletin is the paper of record in the case. Journalistically, I would say it has an obligation to keep that material up for a while more.
The Bulletin is an odd duck of sorts. Aside from the prosecutor’s office and the police, it’s the only organization to actually come out against Amero. In one editorial it even had a subhed “Intent was apparent,” which has been shown repeatedly at this point to be untrue; it also said “her deeds were disgusting and merit punishment.”
The Bulletin, it seems, is good at either jumping to conclusions, accepting official word at face value, and/or failing to look into things. None of which are good qualities for a newspaper.
For example, on February 6, the paper’s education reporter, Dan Axelrod, wrote the following on his blog:
Enough. Enough e-mails, phone calls and letters to the editor defending Julie Amero. I’m sick of them. The worst part of all is that people jump to these conclusions without viewing any of the evidence or police documents. Here are the facts: Amero showed graphic pornography to up to 10 children in a Kelly Middle School class, according to a police investigation.
Actually, the fact is not that Amero “showed graphic pornography” to anyone. The fact is that a computer in the classroom she was substituting in was infected with malware that caused porn pop-ups.
Blaming the school, the police or anyone else for what Amero did is like blaming a rape victim for being raped. It’s sick, it’s wrong, it’s ignorant and it’s moronic.
Me, I wouldn’t equate the school to a rape victim. Forgetting how that kind of comment minimizes what happens to real rape victims, it ignores that fact — in evidence at the time Axelrod wrote that — that the school failed to install and maintain the software necessary to prevent just the kind of thing Amero experienced.
According to a Norwich police affidavit, “the pornographic sites were almost continuously viewed from approximately 9:24 a.m. to approximately 11:11 a.m.” No one accidentally clicks on pornographic pop-ups advertisements for nearly two hours continuously.
This is a case of Axelrod not bothering — as a good reporter would — to verify with an independent expert whether pop-ups can appear continuously without user intervention. As we all know, and I’ve shown, they can.
I don’t know what they usually do at the Bulletin. My SOP is to contact someone at a local university — a professor or, in this case, an IT person — to comment. But Axelrod preferred to take the police at their word, and it’s pretty clear that the police were wrong. That’s the danger of a reporter not bothering to get both sides. Sometimes the one side you get is wrong. (Although, to be fair, the comment was made on Axelrod’s blog and is an opinion, not a news story.)
Oddly, like some of the Amero-related material on the paper’s Web site, this blog entry has disappered. Luckily, though, there’s Google’s cache of it. (Scroll down to the Feb. 6 entry.)
Whatever happens to Julie Amero, the case is going to be regarded as an important one. No, it’s not like OJ, but people will talk about it and possibly debate it in the future. It’s unfortunate that the Norwich Bulletin is removing content related to the case. It’s content that could someday be nice to have as part of the archive.
I’ve taken to capturing every Bulletin story related to the case, just to have. You never know.
Leland says:
Everything you said was dead on accurate. They took the most basic concepts of Journalism and stomped them into dust.
That said, there is one glaring possible reason why The Norwich Bulletin is pulling content down.
It is obvious there are excellent grounds for an appeal court to overturn the conviction and order a new trial. If the state is stupid enough to try her again, I predict a slam dunk victory for the defense. (Especially with competent council and a well spanked judge.)
If I were Julie Amero, I’d have a civil attorney warming up in the bullpen. There is still the matter of the damage to her good name, her loss of a career, financial costs and changes in her mental state as a direct result of this clearly malicious prosecution of an innocent woman. (I still want to be a lawyer if I ever grow up…)
The legal counsel for the Norwich Bulletin has to be thinking the same thing. Anyone want to bet whether or not the managing editor was told to get into damage control mode?