Chronicle disregards own reporting, runs erroneous letter
In an earlier post, I pointed out the Chronicle's tendency under Jeff Cohen to portray certain political figures as "bad guys," mentioning that Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal had become the newspaper's latest "bad guy."
As I mentioned in that post, the Chronicle's editors are free to take any editorial stance they'd like, however simplistic and childish.
However, when the editorial stance leads to improper journalistic practices, a line has been crossed.
As related to Rosenthal, here is a letter that was published in the Chronicle today:
I CONGRATULATE Pecos County District Attorney Ori White for his quick work to release wrongly convicted Ernest Willis from death row. Willis spent 17 years in a degrading, dehumanizing, violent environment awaiting death for a crime he did not commit. He was released so quickly once the injustice done to him was discovered that even his attorneys were surprised.
It is too bad that Harris County's District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal is not equally committed to justice. In the recent case of Josiah Sutton, he refused to verify that Sutton's pardon was due to innocence.
Rosenthal refused to support an independent investigation of the crime lab, in spite of proof that its errors have sent innocent people to prison. When an error on the part of the judicial system is uncovered, the district attorney should be glad of the opportunity to redress it.
Instead, he responds with anger and denial.
The task of a defense attorney is to represent his client — guilty or innocent. The task of the district attorney's office is not to get convictions, but to obtain justice for all concerned. Rosenthal should be as proud of releasing a wrongly convicted person as he is of convicting a guilty person.
BARBARA NAVARRO
Houston
Unfortunately, the bolded portion of the letter is simply untrue.
Even worse, the Chronicle's own news coverage shows that is untrue.
In a September 30 article for the newspaper, Roma Khanna wrote:
District Attorney Rosenthal has said he would like HPD to begin an independent review of its work and procedures. Members of Police Chief Harold Hurtt's staff said Thursday that they expect such a review to begin next year.
In a September 30 article for the newspaper, Andrew Tilghman wrote:
Rosenthal said he will support and assist in efforts to review other cases that may be based on questionable evidence from the Houston police crime lab, including a proposal to appoint an independent investigator, known as a special master, to examine the cases.
"I remain fully committed to the task of restoring complete public confidence in the scientific evidence introduced in criminal trials in this county," Rosenthal said in a prepared statement.
"I fully support the appointment of a special master qualified to oversee a thorough investigation of the performance of the HPD crime laboratory employees," he said.
Publishing a letter with strong opinions is one thing, but the Chronicle's editors have published a letter with "facts" known to be false, thereby giving credence to those "facts."
One can only surmise that the letters editor agreed with the letter writer's portrayal of Rosenthal as the "bad guy" and didn't bother to check the assertions made. That's unacceptable. Facts should have been checked, and this letter with erroneous "facts" never should have made it into the newspaper.
The editorial miscue is even more damning given the newspaper's improper editing of a letter Rosenthal himself wrote to the newspaper recently, which resulted in the editors having to issue a correction. In that case, I wrote that I thought it was more a case of editorial incompetence than bias. This case seems different.
The Chronicle's editors have made it clear that they oppose the death penalty. Chuck Rosenthal is a conservative who is a strong proponent of the death penalty. He's a perfect "bad guy" for the newspaper to go after on the editorial page if they want, and the crime lab mess gives them the perfect excuse. However, it's not acceptable for the editors' dislike of the man's politics to lead to erroneous information being printed about him on the pages they oversee.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/11/04 11:59 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (0)
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