Indecent Exposure

By: Joe Strupp If you opened the Boston Herald last Nov. 5, you could have read all about Michael Tomaso, Paul Leahy, and Nicholas Robillard. Had you checked out the tabloid the next day, you might have met Collin Salmon, Frank Cook and Henry Andrade. Who are these men? Draft picks by the New England Patriots? Close advisers to Sen. John Kerry? No ? they are registered sex offenders, who had been highlighted by the Herald because they were either repeat sex criminals or had moved to the area from another state.

The Herald's two-part series, which resulted in a monthlong search for unregistered offenders by Massachusetts Governor Mitt

Romney's administration, reported that 33% of the state's registered sex criminals were listed with wrong addresses. The paper also offered a map pointing out which counties had the most incorrect listings. The package presented photos, backgrounds, and other descriptions of 12 registered offenders, including many photographed right outside their homes.

"We took a very detailed look at the integrity of the list," says Jonathan Wells, the Herald's investigative editor and a former "60 Minutes" producer who oversaw the series. "We showed the difficulty they had in keeping accurate information. We wanted to write about specific people."

The Herald series dug deep into a sensitive issue that has lately incited interest ? and controversy ? as more states put their sex-offender registries online and more parents become concerned about the potential threat. But it also forced Herald editors to deal with what has become a divisive journalistic issue. Some newspapers ignore sex-offender listings, while others regularly print photos of these criminals in their news pages or in their classifieds.

The types of crimes perpetrated by these sexual predators range from sex with minors to aggravated sexual assault, molestation, forced sodomy, rape, incest, child solicitation, and public indecency, among others.

Ever since 1947, when California became the first state to require convicted sex criminals to register their addresses with law enforcement officials, the demand to know where these men and women live has grown. Today, all 50 states have laws requiring sex-offender registration, with 41 states providing Web sites where residents can locate the perps at the click of a mouse.

For newspapers, the problem has been deciding how much information to release, and in what form. While many editors see their role as an information conduit, others express concern that reporting too much in the paper ? such as an offender's address or photo ? could spark acts of violence or other retribution against those who, in nearly every case, have already completed their punishment. And then there's the question of the potential lethal impact of providing wrong addresses.

"We don't need to list them," says John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times, which has covered the sex-offender registry without providing lists. Yet Carroll says he would name a registered sex offender as part of a regular news story. "For the government to have it available to citizens is adequate," he says. "We don't see our role as carrying the listings."



Readers' right to know

When The Star Press of Muncie, Ind., published photos of 63 registered sex offenders on Page One in February, along with a list of their exact addresses, the Gannett daily took the issue head-on, making it clear that it favored the right of readers to be informed. "The registry was not well-known among the populace," says Evan Miller, the paper's executive editor.

As expected, the Star Press received strong reactions, ranging from accolades for giving readers specific information they could use right away, to condemnation for sensationalizing the issue for newspaper sales. Gary Hill, chairman of the Society of Professional Journalists' Ethics Committee, said at the time: "If you believe that any of these people have a chance for rehabilitation, then you are doing [them] considerable harm." The paper also got complaints from some of those on the list, including one who said he'd lost his job because of the report.

Still, a number of readers wrote in to praise the paper, including one man who wanted the listing and front-page gallery to appear monthly. "There has been enough of a positive reaction from people that we have considered making additions to the list as they come up," says Star Press Publisher Emmett Smelser.

But the Muncie paper was hardly the first to offer regular updates on local sex offenders. In Texas, a five-year-old state law requires county sheriffs to pay for legal notices that list newly registered offenders in local papers ? with photos. "It doesn't have the same impact as a Page One story," says Steve Jetton, assistant managing editor of the Houston Chronicle, which runs the legal notices each Monday in the classified section. "They [the sheriffs] are entitled to buy the ad as long as they are not committing libel." The Dallas Morning News runs similar notices, says the newspaper's president and editor Robert Mong Jr., adding that they are "watchful about it. ... It is fairly discreet. The information is there for those who want it."

The Chronicle also has reported on the issue in other ways, Jetton says, citing a 2003 story about sex criminals clustering in certain neighborhoods that included a photo and address of a halfway house where several ex-cons lived. "Some neighbors felt they were getting more than their share [of offenders]," he says. "The information is something we wanted to be available."

But not every Texas paper supports the legal-notices approach. Robert Rivard, executive editor of the San Antonio Express-News, calls it "a little odious," pointing out that local weeklies in his area fulfill the legal notice requirement for the sheriff's office. "I know the state has an obligation," he tells E&P. "But, on the other hand, I don't know if [the sex offender] should be hounded in public if he pays his debt to society."

For newspapers in Washington state, the sex-offender registry is also a big issue due to a state law requiring that police inform local media each time a new "level three" ? the most violent ? sex offender is registered. That gives each paper a choice of what to do with the information, with most choosing to report it, editors say.

"We think readers really want it," says David Zeeck, executive editor of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., which runs the photo, name, and block address of each newly registered sex offender in its local section police column. "I have no problem using the name and photo. I have never had one call to complain from anyone." Zeeck says his paper is more interested in the information than most, due to its proximity to the Special Commitment Center for sexual predators at McNeil Island, a state facility that often releases people into the Tacoma area. "We feel that we get more than our share," he says.

But at least one Washington paper, The Seattle Times, refuses to publish the updates. "It is mostly a practical thing, there are too many," says Jacqui Banaszynski, a Times associate managing editor. "We can't do it, and the information is readily available in other ways."

Editors at The Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., have run lists at least three or four times in the past few years, with addresses but no photos. "We do it as a public service," says Charles Perkins, the executive editor. The paper's Web site also links to the state registry site.

The potential dangers of this practice, however, came to light last year in Concord, N.H., when a man who had spoken out against child molesters allegedly stabbed one registered sex offender and set fire to the homes of several others. Police later found a list of the state's sex-offender registrants in his home. Although he had not gotten the list from a newspaper, it still highlights the "vigilante" aspect.

Critics of the registry also point to studies that indicate some sex offenders are more prone to repeat their crimes if their past is publicly highlighted. "Under pressure, they often relieve the pressure by reoffending," says Michelle Burrows, a Portland, Ore., attorney who was involved in a 1999 court battle that ended up keeping that state's registry off the Internet. Phyllis Burke, a sex offender treatment counselor in Baltimore, agrees. "It makes it more difficult for them to readjust," she says. "The biggest drawback is also to the family of the offender, who do not deserve the attention."



For some, a risky proposition

A number of newspapers have been reluctant to regularly run the sex-offender listings because they are not always reliable and updated, as the Boston Herald series showed. "They are fraught with peril," says Bennie Ivory, executive editor of the Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal, which considered printing the listings when its state registry went online three years ago. "We decided we wouldn't publish them because a lot of the information can be inaccurate. It's a thing we can't control."

The Journal Star in Peoria, Ill., had run such lists until 1996, when a listing of 134 offenders it published turned out to have inaccurate information in at least 40% of the cases. "It gets to be misleading and meaningless," says Jack Brimeyer, the paper's managing editor.

Paul Anger, editor of The Des Moines (Iowa) Register, had published updates of offenders until last year, but stopped after finding that too many addresses were wrong. "We couldn't get information that was anywhere up to date, the registry was months behind," he says. "If we had up-to-date information, my druthers would be to run the information in a way that does not pinpoint the exact address, but would give people an idea of where someone is."

But the Register has still reported on the registry, which is a major issue in Iowa because of a controversial state law barring registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care center. The Quad-City Times of Davenport ran a series in February 2003 that included a map pinpointing the 2,000-foot perimeter of each school or day care center and the locations of registered sex offenders. "It was an eye-opener," Times Editor John M. Humenik says about the limited housing options for offenders. "We thought it was strong community journalism."

A similar mapping report came from the Chicago Tribune, which ran a piece in 1998 about sex offenders living in the city's Inglewood area. But Metro Editor Hanke Gratteau says the paper cannot routinely run listings or updates because its circulation area is too large to accommodate all of them. "To raise awareness is a good idea, but I don't think it is our job to track every sex offender," she says. "If it is relevant to a story we are trying to do, we should do it."

Dennis Ryerson, editor of The Indianapolis Star, also declines to run regular listings because it would take up too much space, but adds that his paper has run stories on "how to obtain information and the registry and how accurate it is."

The Boston Globe, which does not run regular registry updates, looks into the issue when related stories emerge, according to Editor Martin Baron. He pointed to the case of Michael Bizanowicz, who allegedly raped and murdered a neighbor and her 12-year-old daughter earlier this year in an area where residents said they did not know of his sex-offender status. The paper followed with a story about changes in the sex-criminal registry that occurred due to the murder. "We did not use it as an occasion to run lists of every sex offender in Massachusetts," Baron says.

The Denver Rocky Mountain News editorialized against Colorado's practice of placing only the most violent offenders on the Web, and allowing only local residents to review the listings in each county. "It has become an open-records issue for us," says John Temple, the paper's editor and publisher.



A question of ethics

For many observers, the sex-offender registry debate raises journalism ethics issues with equal weight on both sides. With so many newspapers taking divergent approaches, the best approach can only be a mix of common sense and sensitivity.

Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, believes editors are "obliged to inform the public, but they are also obliged not to capitalize on the lurid, sensationalized quality of it ? that is where it gets very unseemly," he says.

"Most newspapers don't have a good structure for covering sexual abuse," adds Kelly McBride, an ethics instructor at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., and a former police reporter. "They cover it as a news event, as opposed to a systematic issue of society." A majority of newspapers will only cover the issue when an incident occurs or when there is an outcry about a specific sex offender. "Usually, something comes up like a child kidnapping where people are up in arms," she says. "It feeds into a misperception about sexual abuse, which is that it is a stranger in most cases." McBride urges editors to "play a reasonable role as a watchdog" and not "perpetuate a fear that hurts the public perception of the truth."