News Stories Can Misinform

Dear Ann Landers: This letter to the editor appeared in the Sioux City Journal. The judge and county attorney who handled this case must be the worst in the entire judicial system. Here’s what it said:

“A mother and her sons are out for an evening walk along the road by their rural Hartley, Iowa, home, when suddenly a pickup truck driven by a drunk driver hits the mother and 5-year-old, killing them. The driver of the pickup pleads guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide. Does this admitted drunk driver and double murderer receive a lengthy prison sentence? No. He gets five years’ probation. That’s right - five years’ probation. If you think that kind of travesty cannot happen in our judicial system, think again.

“Because of a legal technicality, that feeble excuse for a sentence was handed down in O’Brien County District Court in Primghar, Iowa. To District Court Judge Frank B. Nelson and O’Brien County Attorney Bruce Green: Gentlemen, you have some explaining to do.”

I hope you will share this with your readers. -Sioux City Reader

Dear Sioux City: Many judges have written to say that not all newspapers print the whole story and partial reports often give the wrong impression. If the facts in that letter to the editor are correct, I, too, would like to hear from Judge Nelson or County Attorney Green explaining why a drunk driver can kill two people and get away with five years of probation. I await an explanation, gentlemen.

The next letter is from a judge in Michigan:

Dear Ann Landers: I feel you have an obligation to present the other side of the story when you print something.

I have been a judge for 36 years. On one occasion, our local newspaper reported that I sentenced a man to 10 years in prison for a $5 bad check. Sounds goofy, doesn’t it? A letter to the editor then appeared in the paper saying I must be “nuts,” and I suppose if that were all one knew about the case, it would indeed sound crazy.

Luckily for me, the convicted man’s sister responded to the letter in the paper. She pointed out that her brother had spent most of his life in prison, that he usually wound up back in jail for stealing and forging checks, and that in this case he had stolen a check from his mother - a welfare recipient - and forged it at the local store. The newspaper article reporting about a “bad check” did not distinguish between insufficient funds and forgery. As a judge, I was not permitted to write and explain. Nor could I point out that, due to his previous criminal behavior, I felt obligated to give this man a longer sentence than his prior sentences for the same crime. Your readers should realize that not all the facts of a case are printed.

I am not proud of everything the judicial system does, but I always assume there is another side of which I may not be aware. -Allan C. Miller, senior administrative law judge, Aiken, S.C.

Dear Judge Miller: You failed to identify the newspaper whose reporter did not bother to mention that the bad check was a forgery and not a simple case of insufficient funds. Too bad. That “detail” put a totally different spin on the story.

Thank you for pointing out that one must not assume everything that appears in print is accurate. Reporters are only human, and while they do try to be objective, mistakes are made and their biases sometimes creep in. Considering the time gun they are under, the vast majority of reporters do an extremely good job.