National Jurist - March 2009 - (Page 42) DISTURBINGTHEPEACE Room for improvement in legal reporting n my first year of journalism school, I had to take a class called “Precision Language.” It taught me a lot — that something is either “unique” or it isn’t. That I should snuggle a limiting word as closely as possible to the noun it modifies, and that the difference between the right word and the almost right word, as Twain said, is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. The last lesson has guided my writing more than any other. Which By Jon Peters isn’t to say I’ve mastered it, or even come close, but I do make a good-faith effort to choose the right words. Words that will express precisely what I mean to say. As a result, I’m pretty hard on journalists whose writing is ambiguous because they chose imprecise words, or altogether the wrong words. Enter, legal reporting. I’m talking specifically about stories on cops and crime, the state and federal courts and regulatory actions. With few exceptions, these stories tend to be poorly written. They’re often ambiguous and too often inaccurate. The same could be said of other news beats, sure, but that doesn’t excuse the shortcoming in legal reporting. At any rate, why are these stories poorly written? The law, like business and medicine, contains many terms of art — words that have unique meanings in the law. (Not to brag, but please note my usage of the word “unique.”) To cover the law, journalists need to understand the terms, and they need to understand how and why the law develops. This enables them to convey more clearly the heart of the story. A quick review of newspaper articles published in my home state of Ohio highlights some of the most recent shortcomings. On Feb. 8, the Salem News reported that the Supreme Court of Ohio planned to sit for a day in Salem and had invited local students to observe “open arguments.” I suppose that’s better than the alternative, closed arguments, but the proper term is oral arguments — the lawyers’ spoken presentations to the court. On Feb. 9, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that a local juvenile judge had “sentenced” a teen to one year in “juvenile prison.” First, juvenile judges do not “sentence” anyone. In a delinquency 42 case, like the one reported by the Enquirer, the judge would hold a hearing to determine whether the juvenile committed specific bad acts. If the state proves its case, or if the juvenile admits that he committed the bad acts, then the judge would hold a disposition hearing, rather than a sentencing hearing, where the court would determine what sanctions, if any, to impose on the juvenile. Second, there is no such thing as a “juvenile prison.” Facilities that house juvenile delinquents go by many names (detention centers, juvenile hall), but they are not “prisons.” Some would say these are distinctions without differences — that it is just semantics — but the judiciary is designed to treat juveniles differently from adults. That design reflects society’s belief that young people are not always fully responsible for their actions. And that young people, unlike many adult offenders, can benefit from rehabilitative services. For those reasons, semantics do matter. Also on Feb. 9, the Toledo Blade reported that foreclosure mediation in Lucas County has been successful at keeping people in their homes. The story, however, neglected to explain mediation — what it is. I’m willing to bet that most readers don’t know much about that process, and even fewer could distinguish mediation from negotiation or arbitration. The journalist shirked her responsibility to inform. I can’t say specifically why those stories were poorly written, because I haven’t talked with the journalists who wrote them. I generally attribute the shortcomings in legal reporting to the failure of journalism schools to train students in the law, and the failure of the journalism profession to devote sufficient resources to the legal beat. But that is another column for another day. For now, suffice it to say, there is room for improvement. Jon Peters, an award-winning columnist and student editor of The National Jurist, is a Leadership Scholar at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. E-mail him at peters.401@osu.edu THE NATIONAL JURIST March 2009
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