Tell-all crime reporting is a peculiarly American practice. Now U.S. news outlets are rethinking it
Posted on AllSides August 1st, 2021
From The Center
ANALYSIS
When suspects’ names appear in crime stories, their lives may be broken and never put back together.
For years, people have begged the Associated Press to scrub their indiscretions from its archives. Some of those requests “were heart-rending,” said John Daniszewski, standards VP at AP who helped to spearhead the worldwide news service’s new policy, announced in June.
Acknowledging that journalism can inflict wounds unnecessarily, AP will no longer name those arrested for minor crimes when the news service is unlikely to cover the story’s subsequent developments. Often, such stories’ publication...