By: Mark Fitzgerald Five Years Later, Reporting Leads To Law
When a major investigative project has no immediate impact at all, reporters can feel as if all they are doing, in Simon Bolivar's famous phrase, is "plowing the sea."
That's certainly how Mike Masterson felt after the Asbury Park Press of Neptune, N.J., in 1995 published a 12-page special report on suspicious deaths that occur in state and local jails and police station lockups. In an investigation that took him across the country, Masterson found experts who estimated that every year perhaps as many as 1,000 people die in lockups.
"When 'Dying in Custody' came out in February of 1995, I took bundles of them down to Washington," he recalled the other day. A bill to require authorities to report lockup deaths quickly passed the House of Representatives, then got bogged down in the Senate, and for five years appeared dead.
Masterson became executive editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times in Fayetteville - and, five months ago, left journalism to become director of communications for American Freightways Corp.
But Masterson's investigation continued to inspire two Arkansas legislators, however, and their bill requiring the reporting of lockup deaths passed the House last summer and the Senate earlier this month. On Oct. 13, President Clinton signed it into law.
"I think this is an example to journalists, especially young journalists, that they shouldn't give up. Don't be distracted by the first hurdles," Masterson said.
Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is editor at large for E&P.
Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.
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