Poynter Institute of Journalism: Sheriff in NYT-Frontline story removes message dinging reporter

Sheriff in NYT-Frontline story removes message dinging reporter

by Andrew Beaujon

Published Nov. 25, 2013 10:10 am
Updated Nov. 25, 2013 11:54 am

In a “Message to the Media” that later disappeared from his office’s website, St. Johns County, Fla., Sheriff David B. Shoar wrote he was originally “more than willing” to discuss the death of Michelle O’Connell with New York Times reporter Walt Bogdanich, who wrote about the case and helped make a “Frontline” documentary about it. O’Connell’s boyfriend, Jeremy Banks, is a sheriff’s deputy in St. Johns County.

Reached by phone, a representative for Shoar’s office said it was adding more documents and the message should reappear later Monday.

Shoar eventually decided against an interview, he wrote in a Nov. 14 letter to Bogdanich that’s still online, after he became convinced that “your story has already been written.”

Bogdanich “subsequently sent me a brief list of questions that I could answer if I chose to,” Shoar writes in his message to the media, saying he was “struck after reading his questions not because of their tone and implications, because that was expected, rather I was struck by how few questions were asked for a case so complex that he had been investigating for nearly a year.”

Shoar’s office already had a page collecting documents about the O’Connell case, including some of his correspondence with Bogdanich, but it’s down, too. In his media message, Shoar saluted “the vast majority” of media members he says are “committed to the truth and clearly understand the difference in ‘reporting’ the narrative instead of ‘creating’ one.”

“For eight months, Walt Bogdanich tried repeatedly, without success, to interview Sheriff Shoar. On more than one occasion, the sheriff agreed to in-person or phone interviews, only to back out,” Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha writes in an email to Poynter. “As the publication deadline approached, Mr. Bogdanich sent Sheriff Shoar written questions in a last ditch effort to get his response to our findings and his perspective on the case. The deadline for the sheriff to answer came and went without any response.”

Related: New York Times, ‘Frontline’ collaborate on investigation of Florida woman’s death

Tags: Investigative journalism, The New York Times

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