A question of ethics: Fake story is news not fit to print

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Robert L. Jamieson Jr.

Friday, April 25, 2003

A question of ethics: Fake story is news not fit to print

By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Scott O'Toole is a hard-nosed prosecutor who uses creativity to nab bad guys.

His current case involves a kickboxer facing a murder rap, and O'Toole is missing the one thing that could seal the deal: a body.

To win, he will draw on what he calls "much circumstantial evidence," courtroom finesse and, should he ask for it, my help.

That's right -- me. Should I help him at any cost?

If I did, O'Toole's boss, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, would howl for reasons that will become clear later on.

But I could assist O'Toole by concocting a story about a body -- maybe the murder victim? -- washing up on Alki Beach. The story could run in this paper with a photo of cops and firefighters at the shoreline crime scene.

This fabrication would be done in the hope that the murder suspect, who professes his innocence, might see the "news story," panic and slip up, giving prosecutors key evidence.

I could never agree to write such a thing.

Why?

Because the "story" would have been fiction; because I would have acted as a lap dog for law enforcement; and because the press would have been used to spread a public lie on purpose.

Deceiving readers in order to dupe a suspect is a no no.

Trust is the vital glue that binds the media to the public, and when journalists lose it they lose all of their credibility.

Surely, something like the hypothetical story outlined could never really happen, right?

A similar story just did, and it publicly came to light in court papers this month.

The case involved O'Toole, a senior deputy prosecutor, the King County Sheriff's office, the Bellevue Fire Department and the editors of the Eastside Journal (now the King County Journal).

The mess began when Steven Sherer of Mill Creek ended up in prison for killing his wife. Two years ago, prosecutors say they caught wind of Sherer's behind-the-bars plans to exact revenge on the people who put him there. He allegedly wanted to burn down the house of his enemies.

Prosecutors say he recruited a former cellmate about to be released. That man told authorities he was supposed to set fire to a house on the Eastside and provide Sherer with proof of the crime.

That's when O'Toole decided to reach out to detectives, and together they talked with Journal editors who agreed to create "objective proof" -- a story in the paper based on a staged fire set by the authorities.

Sherer was reportedly pleased by the "story," which appeared in March 2002.

Police can and do resort to deception. Female cops, for example, pose as prostitutes in vice stings. Prosecutors bluff too, though they ought to be legal and ethical in the way they conduct their duty.

The staged-fire case was a troubling instance in which prosecutors crossed an ethical line, dragging a too-willing newspaper along. The intent of the story was not to inform -- the aim of good journalism -- but to deceive.

Of course, police do at times ask the media to help them and the media agrees by publishing the mug shots of suspects or by holding onto information that could compromise a police investigation.

It's a different matter entirely when law enforcement partners with prosecutors to ask the media to publish a whopper.

"Why should anyone reading the King County paper ever believe another thing they write," asks Michael Triplett, a lawyer and journalist who posted an e-mail on the Web site of the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank.

"I can't imagine a circumstance in which we would deliberately mislead our readers by intentionally publishing a story about a make-believe event," adds Ken Bunting, the executive editor of the Post-Intelligencer.

"Engaging in a lie may not be the only way to achieve the desired outcome," says former Seattle Times editor Aly Colon, who studies ethics at Poynter.

I wondered what O'Toole's boss thinks. Turns out Norm Maleng claims he had no clue what O'Toole was doing, according to the prosecutor's office. O'Toole told me he shared his plans with his supervisor -- Chief Criminal Deputy Mark Larson -- and left it at that.

"We would not have authorized it if we'd known," says Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for Maleng. "It was not sensitive to the institutional role of the press. It just wasn't appropriate. We don't want the public to think we've changed the rules in our office." He added: "We've talked to Scott. He's aware we did not approve and would not."

I caught up with O'Toole yesterday outside the courtroom of the kickboxer trial. He said he figured it was OK to plant the fire fib so long as the police and paper went along. "We saw it as doing a public service. We left it up to the Journal to decide," he said.

The Journal went forward because, as the paper's editor Tom Wolfe explained, the issue was "not a theoretical concern, it was an actual concern -- we knew the man was capable of murder and of trying to recruit others."

Wolfe called the case unique. It set a uniquely bad precedent, flinging open the door to a host of troubling questions, including whether the Journal can objectively cover in the future the police and fire agencies that were involved.

Cops and prosecutors try to solve crimes or win cases. They don't do media ethics. When Wolfe got the knock at his newspaper's door, he should have told the authorities to go away.

In trying to serve a noble cause the paper did a public disservice. It was used, it faked the news and it left behind an ugly ooze.

P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at 206-448-8125 or robertjamieson@seattlepi.com

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