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Inquirer flubs armed school police reporting-again.
Recapping their November article on arming school police officers, the Inquirer papers over or fails to deal with the serious criticisms leveled by representatives of Mayor Michael Nutter and by City Paper
Inquirer flubs armed school police reporting—again.
In yesterday's Sunday Inquirer, reporter Susan Snyder summarizes the paper's “Assault on Learning” series, detailing the concrete policy achievements they tout as the result of their investigations—surely in preparation for an upcoming Pulitzer submission (due January 25).
Here's what's most troubling: recapping their November article on arming school police officers, the Inquirer papers over or fails to deal with any of the serious criticisms leveled against their reporting by representatives of Mayor Michael Nutter and by City Paper (yours truly--see my point by point take down of the Inquirer's strange trip to meet with gun-toting school cops in Houston):
- The Inquirer failed to report on the city's fairly devastating criticism of their reporting. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Everett Gillison had to write a letter to the editor pointing out that, incredibly, the November article's entire premise was wrong: armed school police are already in schools. "The Inquirer ignored the facts, disregarded my statement that city police have been stationed in schools for more than 30 years, and only once noted that Philadelphia officers are 'assigned' to city schools.” Today, the Inquirer summarized the imbroglio with, “Since then, Nutter and Ramsey have been emphasizing that armed city officers already have a significant presence in the schools and it's been so for decades.”
That accounting is brazenly misleading and a disservice to readers.
Even more strange is this: the article highlights the very armed Philadelphia police officers its original reporting ignored without any mention that they ignored it! “Some school and city officials believe that Overbrook - patrolled by eight unarmed school officers as the first line of defense, with two armed city police officers often on the premises and on call - can serve as a model for how city and school police can work together to improve safety, while allowing for discretion as to whether to make an arrest.”
- The article once again failed to take the many, many critics of armed school police into account. As I wrote last month, “It's a shame that Deborah Fowler, deputy director of the public-interest law center Texas Appleseed, had to submit an op-ed to explain that research 'shows that putting a commissioned police force in schools leads to increased court referrals, placing students at significantly higher risk of failure in school and extended involvement in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.' Fowler had in fact been interviewed by the Inquirer, but her criticism and that of others was shunted aside to a short sidebar.”
The article implies that there is some sort of independent campaign to arm Philly's school cops, but there isn't: once again, it is the Inquirer that is campaigning for arming school police. This is, again, profoundly irresponsible. Everyone in the education community that I've spoken to opposes arming more school cops (The Education Law Center and Public Citizens for Children and Youth signed a critical letter in July). Why didn't Susan Snyder include these voices at the core of her reporting?
- Finally, the article failed to reflect upon how shoddy their original reporting on Houston school cops was. They strongly implied that Houston was safer than Philly because the school cops have guns—without offering anything approaching evidence. As I wrote last month, “Armed school cops in Houston telling a reporter that guns make their schools safer does not count as proof — or come even close to meriting nearly 5,000 words.”
The armed school police article was investigative journalism gone horribly awry: the Inquirer created (kind of fake) news and then reported on it, and then went on to credit its reporting for making policy impact. It's like all of us readers are stuck in some weird echo chamber with the Inquirer, the editors just hoping that a member of the Pulitzer committee bothers to stick her head in.
The paper's ongoing series on the danger posed by unregulated natural gas pipelines seems to be the opposite: solid, investigative reporting in the public interest (though I haven't read that series as closely). Same for the great investigation of how poorly-paid defense counsel deprives capital defendants of their rights and costs the public money. In this case, however, the Inquirer wrongly insists on an easy law-and-order solution to a very complicated school violence problem.
Unfortunately, the Philadelphia Inquirer is completely impervious to outside criticism. Recently, WHYY's Dave Davies slammed the paper for failing to report on the $2.9 million in city financing the Inquirer and Daily News were receiving for their move to the old Strawbridge's building. As far as I know, they still haven't. Incredible. The paper often does a fantastic job, but the Inquirer needs a public editor or ombudsman who is willing to keep the paper honest because sometimes they aren't willing to do it on their own.
You are actually quoting yourself in a blog post? That is so pathetic it's almost funny.
The Inquirer does not deal with your "serious criticisms" because you, and your newspaper, are irrelevant.— LilTim- LilTim: Thank you for addressing the content of my post.— Daniel Denvir
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