WTVF-Channel 5 needs to think again before refusing to cooperate with defense attorneys in the trial of accused multiple-murderer Paul Dennis Reid.
A man’s life is at stake.
Last June, Channel 5 reporter Jennifer Krause taped five hours of telephone conversations with Reid, but the station only broadcast about 11 minutes of the interviews. Now Montgomery County prosecutors say they intend to call Krause as a witness for the state, apparently in order to play those 11 minutes to the jury.
Not knowing what else is on the tapes, Nashville defense attorney Mike Engle has asked the court to order Channel 5 to make all the tapes public. “The point is,” Engle said, “we want the jury to be able to hear everything Paul said to Jennifer, not just what Channel 5 thought was important.”
Channel 5 isn’t going to cooperate. “The station intends to oppose the subpoena,” Channel 5 attorney Ron Harris said. He explained that the station will likely invoke Tennessee’s “shield law,” which prohibits courts from requiring reporters to disclose “any information or the source of any information procured for publication or broadcast,” except in very rare circumstances.
Tennessee’s shield law is one of the strongest in the country. It’s intended to protect confidential sources and to prevent police and private litigants from using news reporters as investigators. Although news organizations readily provide copies of stories that have been published or broadcast, editors typically refuse to disclose unpublished notes or tapes, even if the interviews were on the record. Tennessee’s shield law allows them to do that.
This is one case, however, where the shield law should not apply. And even if it does, the station ought to turn over the tapes anyway.
Reid may well deserve the death penalty, but he’s also entitled to a fair trial.
Channel 5 selected and edited the taped interviews to produce exclusive, compelling news shows. Now those edited tapes may help send Reid to the electric chair.
If the jury is going to hear portions of the tapes that Channel 5 broadcast, Reid’s lawyers should also be able to play whatever portions of the tape they believe would help Reid’s defense. That’s simple justice.
The news man’s shield is there so reporters won’t have to rat on their sources. Here, though, the source himself has asked, through his attorney, that all tapes of his conversations with Krause be made public. He ought to have that right.
The person at Channel 5 who edited those five hours of tape into 11 minutes of broadcast time was thinking about how to make a good news story, not about what a jury ought to hear as it weighs issues of life and death. Editorial judgment shouldn’t determine the outcome of a murder trial.
The reporter’s privilege law is supposed to be a shield, not a sword. If Channel 5 doesn’t understand that, perhaps the trial judge will. Channel 5 news director Mike Cutler was out of town and could not be reached for comment. Krause did not return calls. She continues to cover the Reid trials but has not yet reported on her own or the station’s involvement in the story.
A sense of loss
Monday morning, a Tennessean staffer interrupted a weekly meeting of the paper’s top executives to tell them that Dillard’s department stores had bought Castner Knott, one of Nashville’s oldest retail stores and one of the Tennessean’s largest advertisers.
“Faces turned white,” one of the Tennessean executives reportedly said later. Castner’s spends $4 million to $5 million a year advertising in The Tennessean. Insiders estimate that amounts to 3 or 4 percent of the paper’s total advertising revenue.
Other media will be hurt too. Castner’s spends a total of $9 million annually on advertising and promotions in the Nashville area, according to a store official. But even Castner’s executives don’t yet know if the stores’ new owner intends to honor existing contracts with advertisers.
“We’ve been getting lots of calls from advertising people at local media,” one Castner’s employee said. “They tell us how sorry they are that we’re losing our jobs, but what they really want to know is what will happen to their commissions.”
Transitions
Former Nashville Banner staffer Jim Molpus has been named editor of Nashville Life, and Tom Wood, former editor of both Nashville Life and Business Nashville, has been promoted to publisher and president of Eagle Communication, which owns the two magazines. Chris Stovall, Wood’s assistant, is now editor of Business Nashville.
The publisher’s job has been vacant since Tom Bainbridge Jr. left abruptly last year following heated confrontations with Wood. Ted Welch, former president and CEO of Eagle, has taken the title of chairman.
Both magazines have improved significantly under Wood, but because of poor circulation and marketing, they remain stealth publications. Expect Wood to start spending Welch’s money on promotions.
Odds and ends
In the print media category, the bad taste award goes to The Tennessean’s comics page, which recently showed a cartoon figure killed by a falling tree. That same night, on the evening news, viewers watched scenes from the funeral of Vanderbilt senior Kevin Longinotti, Nashville’s only tornado fatality, killed by a falling tree in Centennial Park.
“In the [John] Seigenthaler days,” a retired Tennessean editor explained, “it was the night city editor’s job to check the page proofs before the paper went to press. That comic strip would never have run.” Now, he said, “all Gannett cares about is getting the paper out. Nobody wants to take responsibility for holding up the paper to change a cartoon.”
To comment or complain about the media, leave a message for Henry at the Scene (244-7989, ext. 445), or send an e-mail to henry@nashscene.com.
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