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Arrest warrant issued for Plain Dealer reporter

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by JoelHammond, Mar 17, 2010.

  1. JoelHammond

    JoelHammond Member

    ... stemming from story based on psych eval of serial killer.

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/03/cuyahoga_county_judge_orders_a.html
     
  2. Moondoggy

    Moondoggy Member

    Note the reader comments at the end of the story. Most are actually supportive of the reporter. Maybe there's hope after all.
    And I'll say it before someone else does ... I could work for the P-D, dammit! ;D
     
  3. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    Get the interview suit ready, Ace.
     
  4. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    I hate to wish bad things on people, but I am willing to make an exception.

    Seriously, I hate these kinds of incidents where the court is trying to force reporters to give up sources.
     
  5. HorseWhipped

    HorseWhipped Guest

    Well, as long as the judge is pissed off, let's take off the gloves:

    Tuesday's decision was not the first unusual action to come from Saffold. Some of those include:

    # In August 1996, Saffold told a female defendant who pleaded guilty in a credit card fraud case that she needed to find a better man."Men are easy," the judge told the woman. "You can go sit at the bus stop, put on a short skirt, cross your legs and pick up 25. Ten of them will give you their money. It's the truth." Saffold went on to tell the defendant: "If you don't pick up the first 10, then all you got to do is open your legs a little bit and cross them at the bottom and then they'll stop." ...
     
  6. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    I like a judge with a dose of pragmatism, eroticism, misogyny and the crazy.
     
  7. JimmyOlson

    JimmyOlson Member

    I don't know the particulars of Ohio's shield law, but the fact that the state has a shield law would seemingly allow the reporter to keep his sources confidential. That is, after all, pretty much the point of a shield law.

    Also, I found it interesting that the reporter's name wasn't correct on the arrest warrant (according to the story). That seems like too basic a mistake to be a mistake. It sounds like a judge wanting to scare a reporter (or the editors or the higher-ups) more than anything else.
     
  8. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    Anybody else think this will not end well for the judge? The fact that she issued an informal order to appear and gave him an hour to comply looks reeeeeeally vindictive to me. Not the optimal quality in a judge.
     
  9. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Source comes forward, reporter saved from jail:

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/03/county_judge_reveals_himself_a.html
     
  10. Mystery Meat II

    Mystery Meat II Well-Known Member

    This gave me pause:

    Used that way, it makes "serial-killing" look like a modifier, such as "tall" or "fat" or "left-handed". As though he's a serial-killing suspect in a robbery case or something.
     
  11. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    You are right, and it should have given Plain-Dealer copy editors pause, as well.

    It needed to say "Anthony Sowell, who has been charged in a case of serial killings," or something like that...or, at the least, "suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell," or some such thing.

    As it is, it has Sowell as already convicted of the murders when, in fact, that is not the case.
     
  12. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    What the hell?

    Then what was all this about?
     
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