MediaWatch: August 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: August 1994
- Reporters Hold Anti-Clinton Ads to Higher Standard of Disclosure, Accuracy
- NewsBites: Health Plan or Else
- Revolving Door: The Times Agenda
- Networks Fail to Investigate Allegations While Dismissing Revelations
- Too Tough-On-Crime Lawman
- The Numbers Game
- So Much for the Truth Squad
- Janet Cooke Award: ABC's Tom Foreman Finds the Majority of Ad "Inaccuracy" and "Scare Tactics" on the Right
Too Tough-On-Crime Lawman
Sheriff Brownshirt
"Meet the dinosaur of Maricopa County, Arizona. Sheriff Joe Arpaio doesn't wear boots or ride a horse and rarely carries a gun. But he has a style that would make Wyatt Earp proud, and leave him in the dust. This tough talking crime fighter has a 1990s knack for self-promotion that would rival Madonna." That's how NBC's Fred Francis began his July 13 Now profile of Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Arizona's largest county. The piece criticized the Sheriff mostly for his get tough on crime policies, portraying them as a menace to civil liberties.
"Though he works in seeming disregard of the Constitution, his constituents love him," Francis lamented. One Sheriff policy that constituted a civil rights violation: banning nude magazines from the Maricopa County jails.
"In fact," Francis intoned, "lawyers for the inmates say the top law enforcement officer of Maricopa County is breaking the law. They say the magazine ban is in direct violation of a court order. He gets around it by claiming that nude magazines are a security threat." So in other words, he is acting within his powers and is not breaking the law.
Francis claimed "there are other constitutional issues in Joe's jails -- like the presumption of innocence....Ninety percent of these inmates [in one jail] haven't been convicted, they're still awaiting trial, but they're being treated as if they've been sentenced to hard time." Pre-trial detention, which is usually approved by a judge, is not unconstitutional. That's how Los Angeles prosecutors are holding O.J. Simpson.
The worst rhetoric was saved for Sheriff Arpaio's most creative attempt to curb crime: more community involvement in crime fighting by the formation of citizen posses. These posses volunteer hundreds of hours of their time, keeping a uniformed presence visible and freeing up police to deal with more serious matters.
Maybe if the Sheriff had organized midnight basketball leagues Francis would have portrayed him as an innovative crimefighter with a social conscience. But Francis saw the posses as a threat to freedom: "If this graduation of brown-shirted posse members smacks of fascism, it doesn't bother the Sheriff."
