The importance of publishing public information

A few weeks ago, former Associated Press reporter Scott Charton, a Facebook friend, brought my attention to a column written by Charles Westmoreland, the editor of the Columbia Tribune.

In that column, the editor explained why the Tribune was dropping much of its records coverage. No longer would it be printing information about marriage licenses, dissolutions, land transfers and other records. He offered the following explanation:

Newspapers began publishing these records because they couldn’t easily be accessed. The digital age has changed that.
He is certainly right about that. The digital age has made it possible for someone who wants to look up court records or to find out who owns a piece of property to be able to do so.

About everything else he is wrong. He likely has no choice in the matter since his paper is under new ownership, GateHouse Media, and he has been forced to make dramatic staff cutbacks. He acknowledged as much in his column.

Nevertheless, the basic premise of what he wrote is off base. While it is far simpler to look up records than it was a few years ago, you have to be looking for those specific records.

The job of the newspaper is to tell you the information you did not know you needed to know.

In past years, it has been the newspaper that has told you if there have been a series of burglaries in your part of town and lets you know that you need to be more careful or get involved in a Neighborhood Watch.

The newspaper has recorded the events that mark community life- the marriages, the divorces, the births, deaths, anniversaries, engagements and has served to bring communities together.

The newspaper has told you when the arrests are made and follows the cases through the courts, so the public will not be kept in the dark.

The newspaper has collected this public information and presented it to the public as a service and obviously because it has helped the bottom line.

When you finished reading the newspaper, you knew what was happening in your community and much of that comes from the minutiae of life as recorded on police blotters, city and county records, and the names of those who are no longer with us, or whose joyous arrivals should be celebrated.

The newspaper collected this information and published it in one place.

Undoubtedly, much of the information is available online and a reader could conceivably go to each individual site.

Who is going to do that? Who has the time or the inclination to do that?

Why do newspaper companies keep making decisions that hasten their descent into obsolescence?

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When I was editor at the Lamar Democrat and the Carthage Press, I frequently ran surveys to determine what the readers liked and did not like. Every survey put records material, especially obituaries, at the top of the most read list and in the comments section of those surveys, readers often expressed their appreciation at having this information available.

I haven't been a newspaper editor since 1999 and the world of newspapers has changed greatly during the 18 years that have passed. Much of the public information that had always been a staple of community newspapers is no longer available on their pages. Many had dropped this type of coverage long before the Columbia Tribune made its decision.

So when I decided to launch the Inside Joplin blogs in November 2013, I decided to return to a form of journalism that I knew worked. I used the input that I received from those surveys from the 1980s and 1990s, combined with comments and feedback on my blogs and Facebook pages that was not possible in that pre-internet age to build blogs that could meet the needs of a community whose needs, in many cases, were no longer being met by newspapers.

Inside Joplin Obituaries brought back the concept of free obituaries instead of charging grieving families to print what until a few short years ago had always been considered a news item and not another cash cow for greedy chain newspaper ownership.

Inside Joplin started with Joplin Police Department Arrests, Highway Patrol DWI Arrests, and Highway Patrol accident information and since then has added Jasper County marriage licenses, dissolutions for Jasper, Newton, Barton, McDonald, and Dade counties, Jasper County Sheriff's Office arrests, Barton County Sheriff's Office arrests, bankruptcies, and public information that is provided by various area police departments, sheriff's offices, and other taxpayer-supported organizations.

By putting all of this information on one blog/website, the idea is that you do not have to go to each of those sites to find out what is going on.

I plan on adding more records information as I discover it, or as it becomes available online.

Because so many newspapers no longer provide this type of information, Inside Joplin has become a destination for older readers who remember the way newspapers used to be and younger readers who have discovered the value of having such a resource.

While the lack of such coverage at many newspapers has created an opening for Inside Joplin, it has also received some resistance from those who are not used to seeing this type of information published and consider much of it to be nobody else's business.

While I have no illusions that this will address those people's concerns, I want to respond to a couple of questions and statements I have received about my coverage, both on the records material in Inside Joplin and the cases I emphasize with my coverage in the Turner Report. I plan to respond to others in the future.

A person is innocent until proven guilty. You should wait and write about this after the jury makes its decision.

I don't remember ever having anyone tell me this when I was working in newspapers. The presumption of innocence is important, but it is a legal concept that does not conflict at all with reporting a crime from the moment of the arrest. The presumption of innocence is necessary for the jury or judge that hears a case. The public's right to know is important at all stages.

Take the arrest last week on child pornography charges of a Joplin man who was living at a day care center. The news value of the case is obvious, but there were a couple of people who again chastised me for writing about it before the man has been found guilty in a court of law.

Should the people whose children were in the day care center have to wait until he is found guilty, if that is what happens, to know what is going on? Should the people who live in that community be unaware? Could people begin asking more questions of those to whom they entrust the care of their children?

The same things were said about the former Sonic supervisor I wrote about in my Turner Report posts, based completely on public documents, who was charged with felony statutory rape, had been convicted of five DWIs and was charged with a sixth. That investigation was spurred by the filing of a federal sexual harassment lawsuit against the man and the Rangeline Sonic, and continued with a report on a number of lawsuits settled by Sonic across the United States concerning similar allegations.

Events of the past couple of weeks would indicate not everyone agrees with me that this needed to be written about, but if your child is working at a fast food place, whether it be a Sonic or elsewhere, it raises question that you need to ask.

Obviously, not all cases raise the questions raised by the child pornography arrest or the Sonic lawsuit, but each case has an effect on people, whether it be because they live in the general proximity of where the crime occurred, whether it is a sign of a trend in that type of activity, or in many cases, where the publicity brings forward other people with information about the case- some who could bolster law enforcement's case or others who might be able to exonerate the person who has been charged.

Why do you keep writing one story after another about the same people and the same cases? Can't you just write about the arrest and how it ends up?

The simple answer to that is yes, I could certainly do that. That would be irresponsible, but I could do that. An important concept of providing records and courts coverage is that it provides readers with information about whether their government and their public institutions are operating as they should be. The facts that I provide in these cases are taken entirely from public records even though there are always commenters who say "they are all lies," or "he wouldn't do something like that. You're making it up."

Why do I write about them? Perhaps because I, and my readers, want the know what is going on in their community.

Are people being allowed to bond out who should stay behind bars while they await trial? Are police, sheriff's offices, prosecuting attorneys and judges doing their jobs?

Some have asked me about what they consider to be the excessive coverage of certain accused offenders, such as Ace Mohr of Carthage, who is awaiting trial on a number of felonies. The name was brought to my attention by people who were concerned about him being on the streets. I did not write about him, however, until the Joplin Police Department arrested him on an armed robbery charge.

After some research showed that the arrest occurred while he was awaiting trial on multiple felony charges and that he had been charged with two earlier armed robberies, both of which allegedly took place in Carthage, and then Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney Dean Dankelson dropped the charges both times, I wrote about that and began following developments in the case.

Especially after Dankelson failed to follow the Joplin Police Department's recommendation and for a third time, did not follow through on an armed robbery charge against Mohr. That kind of coincidence cries out for coverage.

I kept writing about him because there were developments and because the handling of this kind of case offers an examination into how the system works of even if the system works.

So as Mohr collected another felony arrest, was allowed bond two more times and at this moment remains free awaiting trial, I provided more attention to the case and shined a spotlight on Jasper County justice.

The Mohr stories eventually led to other reports, including the receiving of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in Dean Dankelson's successful run for judge from criminal defense lawyers coming after the election, at a time when he was still in charge of the prosecution of many of their clients and when many of those lawyers would be arguing before him. That led to a report on $5,000 worth of contributions to Dankelson from the family of someone who was awaiting trial on felony charges and who had another family member that the prosecutor never filed felony (or any kind of) charges against despite law enforcement recommendations and to the information that Dankelson's campaign had sought this family's contributions to cover a campaign debt.

By running the daily arrests and the charges that are listed and then seeing what charges are eventually filed, we get an idea of the role the prosecuting attorney plays in the process. If the prosecutor is not going along with law enforcement recommendations on a consistent basis, that raises the question of whether the prosecutor is being soft on crime or whether law enforcement is being overzealous with the charges. When you report consistently on these crimes, including details from probable cause statements, an answer to that question is possible.

By recording each step of the judicial process, readers can see for themselves judges' attitudes toward bond on certain crimes and can also see what charge is finally the one to which someone pleads guilty. By reporting on the original charges and following the cases through to the conclusion, we also get a look at the types of plea bargains that are being reached.

While it would be ideal to be able to offer that type of blanket coverage on every case, that is not possible. Focusing on certain cases, however, especially ones that for one reason or another have grabbed the public's attention, it does offer the reader an insight into how his or her taxpayer dollars are being spent and whether the courts are dealing adequately with crime in our community.