![]() ![]() So long as newsroom resources are not so diminished that only the most sensational court cases will demand journalists' attention, we can get a lot done for this community. ![]() (It appeared they were hiring for a criminal justice reporter some weeks ago, although the job ad has since disappeared and the roster on the Statesman's website does not include a courts reporter now.) A patchwork of reporters covering criminal justice at local TV stations, KUT, the Texas Observer as it fights to stay afloat, and our small but mighty news team at the Chronicle are still standing.Īnd in fact, daily attention in courtrooms may not be necessary for accountability, just as food safety inspectors don't visit the same restaurants every day, but the chance of their random appearances should keep kitchens operating cleanly. Though she's wearing many hats, the Statesman's skilled Claire Osborn seems to be covering stories that once fell into the purview of courts reporter Katie Hall, who left the paper in February. And it's resources that a lot of local newsrooms don't have anymore," Sanders says.Īll is not lost. Reporting about issues like those – and watchdog stories that cover things like judges accepting bribes and police committing sadistic acts – "all take resources. Police can book you in jail without probable cause and you can be held for up to 48 hours, without even an option to bail out, for another. Travis County's justice system has a range of frightening quirks that the average resident may not be aware of: If you are accused of a crime, you will not be allowed a defense attorney at the first hearing, which determines how much you'll have to pay to get out of jail, for one. ![]() "Journalists and the public benefit from that, and the reason for that benefit is largely because everyone is held accountable." "Our court system is meant to be open to the public," says Amy Kristin Sanders, a journalist, attorney, and UT-Austin professor focused on media law. (For a couple of examples, see: the Central Park Five case, or the early-2000s study that found that the more local television news people consumed, the more dangerous they believed their communities were becoming, even when actual crime rates were trending down.) But local crime and courts reporting, especially in the print news tradition, has also provided critical oversight to some of most powerful actors in local government, including police officers, judges, and prosecutors. It's true that criminal justice reporting in America has caused plenty of harm. They'd listen to police scanners all day and show up where cops did, report on trials gavel-to-gavel, and flip through every arrest warrant filed every day in their counties. It used to be that dailies in major American cities had whole teams covering "cops" and "courts," as the beats were called. Those losses at the city's only daily newspaper included their dedicated crime reporter and courts reporter. If you've followed the efforts of unionized journalists at the Austin American-Statesman, you may know that that newsroom has lost 60% of its positions since 2018. ThompsonĪcross the country, we're seeing a decline in local news reporting, and Austin is not immune to that trend. ![]()
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