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Original Post:
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| Post and CBS: The I-Team effect |
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| The Washington Post/"60 Minutes" |
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| Sun, November 18, 2007 |
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Some investigative reporters wait in vain for any sign that their dirt-digging has prompted positive change. John Solomon, Steve Kroft and their joint investigative team from the Washington Post and "60 Minutes" didn't have to wait. They drew blood without even firing a shot. The TV version of the report airs tonight. The Post starts a three-part series on today's front page. It's undeniably important news, and its impending publication and airing caused the FBI to change a questionable policy. But I have issues with the way in which the Post's John Solomon tells his story. The story suffers from excessive hype, and probably from a rushed edit on the eve of publication. The end result: feeling I was hoodwinked by the kinds of silly I-Team tricks used by local broadcasters whose stories may be less than meets the eye. Which is a shame, because this report is impressive and well-done overall.
In a first-time collaboration, the Post and "60 Minutes" documented evidence that the FBI buried a problem that could cast doubt on hundreds of criminal convictions. At issue is how FBI analysts used bullet-lead analysis to help convict criminal defendants. Using chemistry to compare the lead composition of crime-scene bullets to the bullets in a suspect's ammo cache, analysts testified in hundreds of cases that they had found a likely match. Then, in 2004, independent researchers discredited the technique -- not so much because the chemistry was flawed, but for how the FBI interpreted the comparisons. A year later, the FBI abandoned the practice. But, the Post-CBS investigation found, the government didn't do nearly enough to re-examine cases in which the technique possibly contributed to a wrongful conviction.
The trouble for Solomon began just days ago, when the FBI -- evidently fearing a "gotcha" report in the Post and on "60 Minutes" today -- changed course and essentially agreed to do everything that the report would criticize it for not doing. Solomon's revelation of this "problem-solved" turn in his story comes too late, in the 13th graf, after 12 grafs that seem to say the problem persists and is being addressed for the first time publicly in this story.
So, for the remainder of today's long story, and presumably the rest of the series that it starts, Solomon is left to write about the government's "past inaction." Should the government's change of course kill the story? Of course not. It's still a story that the government wasn't playing fair, and that it changed its mind only when forced to by journalists' questions. But there are more transparent ways of dealing with the switcheroo that the FBI pulled here: such as leading with that as the news, and then filling in the backstory of what led to the change of heart.
Then, in the 21st graf, comes another troubling sign that the urge to hype has won out over clarity. Here we're told that a group called Forensic Justice Project, run by a former FBI lab whistle-blower, has been pursuing the same facts since 2005. In other words, the Post and "60 Minutes" didn't discover this injustice. They're merely drawing attention to it -- which is a fine ideal, but not the same as a true expose of the sort that the original 20 grafs implied. True, the journalists did an original and painstaking analysis of cases nationwide that might have been corrupted by the bullet-lead testimony (and then helpfully publish the state-by-state analysis here). But the chest-thumping tone of the report suggests a level of originality that, it turns out, is lacking.
I plan to watch tonight's TV report and read the rest of the series, not only to critique the work but because it's good and important work. I'll just have to wear sunglasses to cut the glare of the hype.
Update: If the Post ran a yellow caution light in its rush to hype this story, "60 Minutes" blew through a red light -- then backed up and did it again. Tonight's Steve Kroft report provided a powerful historical look at the Justice Department's failings. But not until the conclusion of the report did Kroft inform his viewers that on Friday, the Justice Department agreed to do what the report accused it of not doing. The whole story was exactly upside down, because telling viewers at the outset that the problem was solved would have taken the fun out of it.
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Posted at 09:06 AM
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