Our last news article, "A Tale of Two Stories", was dedicated to focusing on the power of the news media to influence the public's opinion. In the article we reviewed two news station videos covering the officer involved shooting last week in the Portland neighborhood. Tony Hyatt, a veteran WHAS 11 reporter, called the lodge shortly after the story being posted on our web site. Mr. Hyatt expressed his concerns over how our story portrayed his news coverage of the incident as "biased against police".
In response, Mr. Hyatt posted comments in his defense, on our web site, explaining the reasons why his news coverage was different then the coverage presented by a rival news station.
I have never met Tony Hyatt, but talked with several officers who have. Mr. Hyatt has a reputation for reporting the news in a fair and impartial manner and has the respect of those I talked to. The article below was written by Tony Hyatt and posted on the front page of the WHAS 11 web site. The article is wriiten in response to our story.
The Fraternal Order of Police would like to thank Mr. Hyatt for showing the character and resolve to print this news article.
Reporter's Notebook: A difference of opinion on line
Reporter's Notebook: The past week
Usually when I write for this website, it's as a reporter, a profession I have been involved with for about 27 years. Most of what you read on WHAS 11.com are stories that I have covered for WHAS 11 News.
Over the last few years, I have had a genuine interest in the internet and web writing. I am writing this because this past week a situation developed showing me just how important websites have become in reporting.
Last Sunday, I reported on the Metro Police shooting that involved a 75 year old man in Portland. Two officers were called to his home and when they got there, according to Police Chief Robert White, James Hammons met them at the door holding a knife to throat of a woman. Officers say when he did not drop the weapon and tried to stab the woman they had no choice but to fire. He was killed.
Chief White said at the time, it appeared the officers followed procedure. They are currently on paid administrative leave while a standard investigation is under way.
Later in the afternoon, members of the Hammons family showed up at the crime scene. As you could imagine, they were emotional. They asked questions about what happened. Both aspects of this were included in the coverage I did at 6:30 and 11:00pm last Sunday.
I was off for two days last week. When I came back I learned my Sunday story had been used on the website of the River City FOP. For those who do not know, that FOP represents men and women officers both active and retired of the Metro Louisville Police Department. On their website was a story called a Tale of Two Stories. It talked about the role of the media and concern was raised over "Spin Doctoring". The article, which was well written, went on to recount what happens with some media organizations when it comes to police shootings.
I don't deny it.
There are reporters I have known over the years,who form their own opinions about police. I have heard of newsrooms in the past have an agenda with police. I have never seen that done at WHAS.
The article when on to show two examples of news stories about the Sunday shooting. Mine, and one done by a competitor. When I checked it, it was my story from Sunday night and a Monday story from the compeititon. The Monday story had the woman involved in the hostage situation talking about how the officers saved her life.
My concern was obvious. At the time, I thought the website was comparing apples and oranges. Of course, I thought my story would make it look like I was painting police in a negative light. So I began calling the FOP. I admit while I wanted to point out we had all covered the same story, I was also concerned about my reputation.
Most reporters like to think they have always been objective in what ever they do. I like to think I am one of them.
Thus began my interaction in with the FOP website. I will give you the link so you can read if you like and will not recount everything here.
But I found out the reason why this all happened. The webmaster of the FOP site, like anyone who surfs the web checked both stations websites because a police shooting was news. He saw the streaming video stories posted on Tuesday morning. He truly believed like anyone who would have seen our site last Tuesday that was the coverage of the day.
Let explain that WHAS 11. com is a good site. But we are like most businesses at this time of year, most folks are on holiday time. So where there are normally two people who update our site, there was only one. If you are a webmaster for a site that changes all the time everyday, it's hard to keep up with everything. And truth be told, I check our site daily from home and I never thought to point out that we needed to update the streaming video story that we did Monday night to make our competition.
This week ended with an understanding.
The FOP's Webmaster was right to point out that while onTV, things may have been covered that was not the case for anyone who surfed the web. He makes a good point and probably one that I should have realized earlier in the week. Sometimes reporters do get wrapped up in their image and they tend to forget to look at things realistically.
These days websites and bloggers have become a way for people to get information. I made the mistake of not paying attention to that. The FOP's website is as good as I have seen. Their job is to keep their membership informed of issues that affect officers. It is the exact same thing I do. Keeping people informed of what is going on around town. From what I have seen, they have done a good job. As a citizen you should check it out and possibly learn what officers are faced with.
So to anyone who surfed our website earlier in the week and thought we were putting police in a bad light, I apologize. I will do a better job in the future, not only on TV but in cyberspace.
One of the comments made on the FOP websites was from some one who wondered if WHAS 11.com would explain why what happened happen, maybe as a retraction. Let's not call it a retraction but rather an explaination. Sometimes,
I think we in the media fail to explain why we do the things we do. If we did a little more of that, it might improve our overall image.
If you want to see what all this was about and do a little reading about your local police go to www.rcfop.com
Keep up the good work Chris,
Tony