The Chief’s Race: A Correction & An Apology

I have come to the conclusion that I owe LA Times reporter Joel Rubin an apology.

On Friday morning, in a fit of pique, I accused him and the LA Times of slanting their coverage of the selection of the new chief of police in favor of Deputy Chief Charlie Beck. (Beck is an excellent man who is one of the short list who would make a fine chief, but that isn’t the point.) I came to this view after conversations with and emails from a number of insiders and cop watchers who feared that this POV was being communicated by the paper at a time when the selection process is—and should be—still open.

Last night, however, I talked at length with Joel Rubin. This morning, I once again reviewed the coverage. And I believe I had it wrong, in particular with regard to Rubin’s article.

Joel said that his recent story about the chief of police selection process was the result of reporting and interviewing that began when Bill Bratton resigned, and that he did not and would never slant his coverage in favor of one candidate or another. I believe him. I’ve followed Joel’s work during his tenure covering education and then on the police beat and have found him consistently to be a skilled, honest and ethical reporter who takes his job very seriously.

So to Joel Rubin I offer my sincere and unqualified apology for jumping to what I now believe was an unwarranted conclusion.

The fact that his reporting led him in some parts of his assessment of the chief’s contest to different conclusions than did my own reporting and interviewing (also begun the day we learned that Bill Bratton was going to resign) means only that we have interviewed a different mix of sources.

To the LA Times I also offer something of an apology. After talking to Joel and reconsidering the totality of the coverage in a calmer light, I do not think there was any purposeful slanting.

However, to this last statement I would offer one cautionary note. As those of us in the news business are particularly aware, the position of Chief of Police is, in many ways, more important to the well being of Los Angeles, and frankly more a powerful office, than that of any of the city’s elected officials. In Bill Bratton we were blessed with the chief we needed at a crucial moment in LA’s history. Now as we move into the era of AB—After Bill— we are further blessed with a range of good in-house candidates, a number of whom could be truly great chiefs.

Yet because of the importance of this job, there are understandably a lot of people and constituencies with strong interests in seeing this person selected over that one. So in reporting what our sources tell us about the way the current is running at any given moment, are we simply doing our job in informing the public, or are we inadvertently starting to push the current ourselves?

If the Times runs an editorial saying race and gender should not enter into the selection of chief (which, I agree, it shouldn’t) if not carefully worded, will that editorial be viewed at face value? Or will it be seen as the Times saying, pick the white guy—especially if, on that same day, a major news article runs about the selection process that says that one of the white guys has the inside track, that the main woman in the contest has a black mark against her, and does not even mention the Hispanic guy (or guys) as being even in the running?

Where is the correct boundary between informing the public about possible outcomes and risking influencing those outcomes?

I don’t have a clear answer to that question. I would merely respectfully suggest that it is a question we must ask ourselves over and over.