Henson on Media & Crime Coverage

I honestly don't like to Scott Henson's Grits for Breakfast. It's an interesting enough beat that's certainly of interest ... just not one that I tend to blog a great deal about. So maybe it was just a matter of time before I'd have an excuse to blog about something there. The excuse comes from Scott's notes on an inmate who died in a Pasadena jail. The guy gets beaten to a pulp by cops with a witness offering (take it or leave it) that there was no resistance. The guy being beaten dies. Harris County DA's office phones over and asks if they need to come out to investigate (instead of, ya know, doing the job they're supposed to do). Pasadena police say the guy tripped and died. Chuck Rosenthal's office did nothing but let time go by so evidence and possible witnesses would vanish. That's my take.

But here's Scott's analysis, touching on an aspect of the media coverage of such incidents:

Grits: MSM unwittingly colludes in covering up police misconduct

I know nothing more about this case than I've read in the media, but the MSM accounts follow a pattern that I've observed in dozens of controversial death in custody cases over the years:

In cases where the department might be held liable, initial reports are often flat out lies. Literally falsehoods. Fabrications. When there is no evidence public yet, police spinmeisters can and do say whatever they think makes the department look best. Often these lies aren't even necessary - they sometimes appear to be just habitual. The media then dutifully report these misstatements to the public.

Within a week or so, a tiny bit of truth trickles out and police must backtrack. The media print a less prominent story with the added information.

Finally, weeks later, if evidence arises of police culpability that contradicts earlier statements, the story gets covered again, but by this time the record is strewn with false and misleading statements and often the public's attention has shifted to another topic.

At this point, one of two things happen: Either the story goes away, or in order to gin up public interest again, the media must publish a "gotcha" story that accuses the department of lying (since they did) and that causes the department to circle the wagons further to protect the officers in all but the most clear-cut cases. This pattern of media coverage doesn't just happen in Houston, btw. It's how police PIOs handle "critical incidents" just about everywhere.

It doesn't come as much of a surprise that the media acts this way. The life of a story is usually hottest at the outset. It's just that, in this case, it stands in stark contrast - again - to the liberal media mime we hear so frequently chirped by those with a political interest in seeing news reporting discredited lest it come back to paint their team negatively.