Never, Ever Talk To A Reporter

I have, twice in my life.

The first time was a long time ago when I was living in Toledo, Ohio. The area had been hit with an ice/sleet/snow storm and a reporter for The Toledo Blade was doing a story about the insurance aspect of the event. At the time, I was an insurance adjuster. The receptionist put the “cold call” from the reporter through to me. We talked at some length, I was pleased with the attention.

A day or so later the story came out. I was quoted, more an inaccurate paraphrase than a quote, and a bit out of context. The story had a slant that was not at all apparent during my “chat” with the reporter. It wasn’t a disaster; but, I learned.

Still a long time ago while living in Miami and going to law school, I was called by a Miami Herald reporter. You may have heard of him, Joel Achenbach. He now writes for The Washington Post. Back then he was a “feature” reporter and did a lot of stuff for the Herald’s Sunday Magazine.

A friend had come across his radar and called me saying that Achenbach was doing an article about him and wanted to interview some of his friends. I was reluctant; but, I agreed to talk to him.

At somewhat more length than set out above, I told him about the Toledo deal and was clear that I didn’t trust reporters in general. He understood, he said. He still wanted to talk with me and asked me what I needed to make that happen. We settled on an agreement that he could only mention me and/or quote me if I agreed to what he wrote with respect to my part of the article. We talked then at some length, several times.

He called me a few weeks later and read me what he proposed would go in the piece. It was a direct quote, it fit with the context and I approved.

I got a bit of notoriety for a few days at school as people who had read the article nodded, smiled and commented.

You thought I’d never get to the point of the post, admit it.

The current issue of The New Yorker has an article by Jeffrey Toobin on the infamous, at least around these parts, Brian Nichols trial. Back in 2003, Nichols is accused of injuring a sheriff’s deputy, shooting and killing a judge and a court reporter, shooting and killing another sheriff’s deputy and a DEA agent that he happened upon and finally with kidnapping a woman who after a bit of time convinced him to give himself up.

Here in Georgia we have a death penalty statute and a “life in prison” statute for murder. The latter allows parole. We don’t have an option of “live without parole.” Well, Nichols’ crime is pretty heinous, he was charged with fifty some separate crimes and the Fulton County Prosecutor wants him to be executed.

Your or my opinion about the death penalty aside, getting to it is a very, very expensive proposition these days, given recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

The Fulton County prosecutor has listed over four hundred potential witness and turned over more than 40,000 pages of documents. There are five lawyers working on the case for the County. The State’s public defender office assigned Nichols four lawyers. One of the lawyers is working for free and the top guy is working for $175 an hour. There has been loud and widespread outrage that the defense has cost the state upwards to $2 million so far, though the prosecution has probably spent about the same. Currently the case is on hold because the defender’s office is out of money and the Legislature hasn’t approved anymore. The Speaker of the House has called for the trial judge’s impeachment (judges don’t get impeached down here, they are removed only by the State Supreme Court, but why should that prevent a state official from pandering to public opinion) and the prosecutor filed a motion to force the Judge’s recusal. The Judge denied the motion and then allowed the Prosecutor to file an appeal directly to the State Supreme Court. So as I said, the case is on hold.

OK, finally the point. The New Yorker did an article about all of this and more which is currently on it’s website. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution today reported that the Judge was quoted as saying something along the lines of “everyone knows he did it.” I read the New Yorker piece, there’s more of the same and worse. There’s a controversy as to whether the reporter had the Judge’s permission to quote him. The Judge said he talked to him “on background.” The reporter says no way, it was all on the record.

The end result is going to be the Judge’s removal from the case: you are allowed to think things like he said, you just can’t say them in public if you are the judge. So, we’ll spend a few more million bucks in our attempt to fry Nichols (actually lethally inject him once we get the approval on the new formula from the Supremes).

Don’t talk to reporters, never, ever.