Jackson Free Press

Get this. The Clarion-Ledger today ran a letter from Don Drane of Madison complaining about JPD putting a jacket over the face of Fred "Lucky" Winston during his perp walk, and that the Clarion-Ledger ran the photo. Drane's accusation: "Why would officers accommodate this man by agreeing to conceal his identity with one of their uniform jackets?"

My question: Does Drane read the paper, or just look at the crime photos in the paper? The following passage was in the C-L's story about the arrest: "Because a witness was going to be asked to pick their photos from a lineup, officers would not provide photographs of either suspect, and the men's faces were covered by jackets when they were escorted out of police headquarters Saturday, Graham said."

It is common to protect the integrity of line-ups by concealing the suspect's identity until after the line-up. Can't you just imagine the letters about JPD's sloppiness had they exposed his face and then the case was thrown out because he couldn't be picked out of a line-up?

Here's my second question: Why does the C-L run letters like this with such unfactual and misleading statements??? The press is responsible for the facts included in letters in the editor—not opinions, mind you, but facts. We also have no responsibility, and should not, run letters that make such uninformed accusations, at least not without an editor's response. Sometimes there's gray area, but I don't see any in this case. This is not "civic"; it is just silly, but it gives suburbanites another reason to complain about the city. Argh.

Previous Comments

ID

173088

Comment

I saw this morning, and thought, "man, Donna's gonna have a cow when she sees this." I do not understand the CL's letter policy. They do call people and verify their identities before running letters, but they really don't seem to screen them for any sort of sense, or put in any sort of rebuttal, the way I've seen other papers do.

Author

kate

Date

2004-01-07T12:56:26-06:00

ID

173089

Comment

i haven't seen the c-l today; work was too crazy and afterward, fenian's was a-callin. i have a copy in my bag, though, so i'll see it soon enough. the editorial pages always get me, though. like who picks the "letter of the day" or whatever, with the box and the picture? and it *really* does seem like most of what's printed is merely skimmed for cursewords or inflammatory statements. i don't know the actual volume of their mailbag, but most of the time it feels like they're simply trying to fill the page. on the other hand, it is really nice to see the mix of syndicated columnists on the facing page. while my hometown rag (MS press, 'goula) won't run anything but ms. coulter, i like seeing molly ivins and others run regularly. it balances out nicely, for a paper so solidly in the middle of the deep south.

Author

Jay

Date

2004-01-07T22:13:34-06:00