Though prosecutors’ recent attack on the media was peculiar and troubling, they got one thing right: Journalists must always maintain an exceedingly high standard of accuracy and fairness when reporting on the courts.
But instead of launching broadsides on Facebook, prosecutors should channel their energies into helping journalists meet that high standard.
In this regard, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has fallen short for many years.
For journalists in the Virgin Islands, obtaining even basic information about ongoing court matters from the ODPP can be impossible. Prosecutors rarely return our calls, and we have been told repeatedly in recent years that they are barred from speaking to the media at all.
Meanwhile, our queries to the ODPP’s general delivery email — where we have been instructed to send information requests — frequently go unanswered. (This month proved to be a welcome exception when the office responded quickly and politely to a query we sent shortly after its Facebook criticism of another media outlet).
We recognise that the office’s resources are stretched thin, as DPP Tiffany Scatliffe and her predecessors have often reminded the House of Assembly during Standing Finance Committee deliberations.
But so are the media’s. Even the largest media houses in the territory employ only a handful of journalists, who typically cover not only the courts but also politics, government, financial services, tourism, community events, sports and many other beats.
Meanwhile, it is not uncommon for five or six important cases to be heard simultaneously across the Magistrates’ Court, the High Court’s criminal and civil divisions, the Commercial Court, and the Court of Appeal.
Add to that the fact that court schedules frequently change without warning and lengthy delays can leave reporters stalled for hours as they wait for a particular matter to get under way.
Largely because of such issues, the media’s reporting on the territory’s courts tends to be patchy at best. Even murder cases sometimes don’t make the news.
As journalists work to do better, it would make a world of difference if the ODPP would help them keep the public informed by quickly answering queries and consistently releasing factual information about all its major cases — not just its wins.
Of course, we are not suggesting that the office should go so far that it prejudices trials. Far from it. But prosecutors elsewhere routinely release basic details about their work — just as they regularly assist journalists with the technical details of cases when needed.
Years ago, then-DPP Terrence Williams — who, incidentally, routinely returned our calls and often encouraged his prosecutors to speak with reporters — announced plans to set up a media unit in the ODPP.
But he left before he got it done, and none of his successors followed through.
Ms. Scatliffe should revisit the plan. She should also boost her office’s transparency by creating, publishing and closely following a comprehensive media policy.
And in the meantime, she should assist journalists by promptly answering their calls and emails; routinely disseminating basic facts about all her office’s major cases; and lifting any gag order that may be keeping her team of prosecutors from assisting the media.
Such assistance would go a long way toward helping journalists meet the high standards upon which the ODPP itself has rightly insisted.
When it comes to crime, the public should always be kept properly informed.
The ODPP’s part in that effort should involve much more than periodically berating the media on Facebook.
