The Reporter Did It?

I don't know anything about this case, but I think I know why this guy was acquitted. He was accused of knocking over a lesbian protester, and had not only the protester but two eyewitnesses testify that he did exactly that. Contra that, he himself was the only primary one to testify. [UPDATE: There was other defense testimony, I've learned since writing this. More at the end.] 

So it wasn't he said, she said.... more like he said, they said. But the jury believed him, and not the witnesses. 

I think I can explain. You see, one of the witnesses was a reporter for the once-great, but now empty and decrepit, local daily, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. The people in Worcester are simple, decent working- and middle-class folk (I was born there and grew up nearby; I returned there and taught school briefly after serving on active duty).

They know that if the Telegram & Gazette reporter said it these days, it probably never happened. The more so when it's in the context of the great gay buggernaut (well, what would you call a gay juggernaut?). The Buggernaut in all its manifestations has been one of the T&G's hobby horses, and nobody who reads the newspaper has any illusions that their reporters can be honest about it.

The T&G once was, as I said, a great paper. It was created when the morning Worcester Telegram and the Evening Gazette merged. It had its own reporters and columnists who knew Worcester intimately: its neighborhoods, its public citizens, its employers, its very seasons and drainage and geological strata. 

The T&G was locked intimately into the community. It was, Worcesterites would tell you, "our paper." The perennial issues of Worcester's micropolitics -- crime in Main South, the perpetually failing Worcester Center/Galleria/whatever they call it now, the turbulent ethnic mix in the schools -- played themselves out in the news pages, and rational and reasonable solutions were debated on the editorial and op-ed pages in an atmosphere of responsible dignity. All this, and enough of what was happening in the larger world to keep a guy feeling informed... and, of course, the cartoons. 

Globalization came to the T&G in the form of a buyout by the New York Times. The Worcester paper became a farm team for the Boston Globe, which was in turn the Times's farm team where it developed talents -- like Jayson Blair, the archetype of today's Timesman. 

From local issues reported and discussed by local reporters and columnists, the paper turned to the sort of global and national crusades so beloved by capital-J Journalists. It became a way station for egos seeking only a rung on a career ladder, and the local content, over time, dissipated; the division between news and editorial material evaporated, and the paper began to follow the Times model of slant and cant on every page. 

Nowadays, the T&G is only another red line on the Times's declining balance sheet, a contributor to its stock plunge. There are many factors in the fall of the Times, and nepotism and disruptive technologies certainly play a part. But the collapse of the Times's credibility is a leading indicator of the collapse of the business's financial fortunes, and that credibility collapse cascade is even more advanced at its regional properties, which suffer from big-Times wannabee syndrome. 

It had to happen, but I wasn't expecting it so soon: the credibility of reporters has fallen so low that even when you put one under oath and provide two concurring witnesses against one man, the jury goes against the reporter. 

UPDATE: This column is typical of the Telegram's coverage of the Cirignano trial. But reading between the lines, it appears that reporter Richard Nangle's credibility problems indeed contributed to the failure of this prosecution. Amusingly, the columnist complains about her colleague having to testify was horrible because, "it could compromise [his] neutrality."

Apparently the reporter who testified that Cirignano assaulted Sarah Loy, Richard A. Nangle, was not present in photographs of the rally that the defense attorney showed him when he was on the stand. D'oh! What do they say at the Times about credibility and layers of editors? And what does it say about the Telegram & Gazette that the only mention of this rather vital fact, in all their slanted reporting of the case, is en passant in an opinion column?

Other reporters, including one from the local gay paper (which means either Bay Windows or the Boston Globe, I'm not sure, maybe both) were excused from testifying because the witnesses quoted in their stories corroborated their stories, making their testimony unnecessary. 

And here's how the Telegram actually reported the verdict. "Just the facts, Ma'am, except we'll leave out the fact that our reporter-activist's credibility or lack of the same was a key issue, or that we've been editorializing steadily (in both opinion and news pages) for the opposite verdict."  

This pre-verdict story from gay sources is more detailed, balanced, and accurate than the Telegram's reporting. It reveals some of what Nangle said in his testimony, although it also, like the Telegram stories, elides the photographic evidence that he was confronted with on cross-examination. It also reveals that the newspaper desperately did not want Nangle, reputed to be an avid gay-marriage supporter, questioned on that subject under oath. The newspaper lawyer's concern was the damage that would do to the paper's credibility. (Looks like they prevented that particular question, but Nangle on the stand didn't do the Telegram's credibility any good). 

The purpose of the rally was to encourage (or shame) the Mass. legislature into permitting an initiative petition on gay marriage to appear on the 2007 ballot. The petition was approved by a very large number of citizens, but the legislature bottled it up; with the legislature, the courts and the newspapers all favoring the Buggernaut, citizens' groups had no recourse but rallies. Loy was one of a group of gay protesters who, along with the reporters who were all sympathetic to her cause, tried to disrupt the rally. Gay groups feared that even in Massachusetts gay marriage was too unpopular to win an up-or-down vote.