News media shouldn't have to investigate for prosecutors
WILLIS WEBB

Members of the media bridle at certain actions of grand juries and judges, particularly when they subpoena reporters and their notes and seek reporters' sources.

Such an order nearly 10 years ago came from a judge instead of a grand jury and produced somewhat mixed feelings for me.

It occurred during the final of three trials of those accused in the horrific race-hate dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper.

Shawn Berry was on trial. Earlier that year, during the second trial, Berry was videotaped and interviewed on a summer weekend in the Jasper County Jail by Dan Rather for a segment of CBS's 60 Minutes II. The second trial was underway in Bryan on a change of venue and District Attorney Guy James Gray and Sheriff Billy Rowles were at that trial Monday through Friday. While they returned to Jasper for the weekend and, since the taping took place at their jail, they had the opportunity to do their own videotaping. Being exhausted from the second trial proceedings and having to prepare to return to Bryan Sunday night, the duo opted not to video the Berry interview. They later admitted they thought, partly because they allowed the taping in the jail, that CBS would turn over the entire video and transcript of the session.

When that didn't happen and as Berry went on trial, the DA filed a motion with the trial judge, Joe Bob Golden, asking that CBS News be ordered to turn over the transcripts and outtakes of Berry's 60 Minutes II segment. There were some holes in the case against Berry so the prosecution was looking for anything additional to make sure the capital murder charge stuck.

Since the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment isn't as protective of the media's rights as we'd like, Judge Golden ordered CBS's Mary Mapes, producer of the 60 Minutes II Berry segment, to turn over the transcript.

Mapes made a production of it, not showing up when first ordered to do so, saying she'd gotten lost in Beaumont trying to find her way to Jasper. Since that seemed a bit ridiculous to most Jasperites, within a few days of that declaration, there appeared a lot of tshirts that read: "I'd Rather be lost in Jasper than spend 60 Minutes in New York City."

However, Mapes found her way to Jasper on a second attempt and was arrested on contempt charges since she refused to turn over the transcript. She posted bond and was released. That's when she and CBS's executives and attorneys got together and found a way to avoid the contempt charge and circumvent the court order. They posted the complete transcript of the Berry interview on the Internet, thus putting it totally in the public domain and available to everyone.

Their objections to turning it over to the court are for the same basic First Amendment protections in which we in this profession believe. And, actually, CBS used the same device we'd used at The Jasper Newsboy in the very first Byrd murder trial, that of Bill King. He'd written a letter to our editor and had the sheriff pass it to us on the first day of the trial, a Monday. While the letter had potentially less impact than the CBS transcript, we knew if the prosecution knew we had the letter, they'd subpoena it and someone on our staff. A small weekly newspaper can't afford to have a staff member sidelined for several weeks. So, on Tuesday night as we went to press with the stories and the letter, we posted the letter on the Internet. And, we delivered a copy to the DA.

Interestingly, while waiting for the Mapes-CBS-Berry drama to unfold, I stood outside the courthouse with some law enforcement officers and we discussed the dilemma of turning over media investigative work to law enforcement, particularly when law enforcement had other options to gain the information. I explained that while part of me wanted the prosecution to have everything it needed to bring justice in this case, the press is not a governmental or law enforcement body and that we should not be doing the work for law enforcement. I pointed out that if it was generally known that we gave confidential information and sources to law enforcement, particularly if it pertained to government corruption, then all our sources would dry up and there'd be no revelations of such shenanigans.

They all nodded, smiled politely and said they understood. Thankfully, they did not string me up.

Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher with more than 50 years in the business. He can be reached at wwebb@wildblue.net.