23760 11/29/07
COMM 409.6-Moran
Term Paper
A Mountain out of a Molehill?
Two similar local stories; one receives national attention, while the other doesn't make
it beyond a single article in metropolitan Philadelphia. To a rookie aspiring to be an
investigative reporter, the national fame of a murder charge in the shooting of a cop
41 years earlier can bolster investigation of an unsolved hit-and-run in the early morning
hours of Halloween 1991. Newsworthiness and odd details may be present in the latter
case, but does that ethically warrant disrupting the lives of the victim's family by
publishing when a private individual has a greater right to privacy than a public figure?
Absolutely not, suggest consultants. A Golden Mean might be possible, however, if a
journalist conducts an investigation of these compelling facts without publishing--at least
until the cop killer's Dec. 11 pretrial. Whether one thinks William J. Barnes, 71, should or
should not be charged for murder, the cop case also raises issues that can be applied to
the hit-and-run situation should the perpetrator be found.
Philadelphia Police Dept. patrolman Walter T. Barclay's death on Aug. 19 ended a life
his sister says was over at 23 years old, when the gunshot that hit his shoulder paralyzed
him from the waist down1. Responding to a 4 a.m. beauty salon burglary about three days
after Thanksgiving 1966, Barclay confronted a drunk Barnes who says he was trying to
use a gun to distract the rookie cop and his partner. The then 30-year-old Barnes
randomly fired two shots after an order to freeze went unheeded, resulting in his 15-year
prison sentence for Barclay's attempted homicide as committed by him. Barnes has since
been placed, according to a Sept. 13 Associated Press article, in Graterford state prison's
medical branch without bail after District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham formally charged
him with murder on a coroner's determination that Barclay died from a urinary tract
infection as a direct result of his wounds.
"The law is that when you set in motion a chain of events," she famously said at a
Sept. 4 press conference, "a perpetrator of a crime is responsible for every single thing
that follows from that chain of events, no matter how distant, so long as we can prove the
chain is unbroken." During the noon newscast that day, Stephanie Abrams of CBS 3
reported that the district attorney additionally said that "any gunman who shoots and
injures a person in the city who later dies from those injuries may also face murder
charges."
But could a car aid in the commission of a past murder just as can a gun? An April 1
article in the Delaware County Daily Times appears to link another local figure's death
with a hit-and-run that happened 15 years earlier and left the then 21-year-old victim
unable to talk2. Ronald A. Hasiuk died on March 30 at 36 years old, only about five
months earlier than Barclay. This researcher, who also was a reporter-intern for The
NEWS of Delaware County last summer, thought he definitely had an affirmative answer
to his question--one that implicated the faceless perpetrator who drove the "white vehicle
with a dark stripe" as a murderer.
For a column that was to appear in the weekly edition of Aug. 29, this reporter-intern--
though no legal expert himself--wrote this, yet unpublished:
Under the radar? Hit-and-run-and-hide?
While the Philadelphia district attorney's pending investigation 40 years later
on a possible murder charge for a burglary shooter seems to have received national
attention, a related incident in Ridley Park occurring 15 years ago has apparently
gone unnoticed by the media.
But one hard-to-find story about the Ridley Park hit-and-run appeared on
delcotimes.com on April 1.
And now the above case can be re-examined and charges brought with more
authority thanks to the famous one of the cop killer, William J. Barnes.
Only serving with the Philadelphia Police Department for 1 1/2 months at the
time of the shooting, Walter T. Barclay, Jr. was shot "several times," according to
the PhillyBurbs section of MSNBC.com, with striking similarities to the article,
"Hit-and-run victim dies 15 years later"
1. Barclay, like early Halloween hit-and-run victim Ronald A. Hasiuk, was a
paraplegic as a result of his injuries--suffering a mortal blow to his spine. It's
likely Hasiuk's spine was affected, too, as he was paralyzed from the waist down,
like Barclay, and a healthy spine is used for movement.
2. Both victims died at nursing homes. Hasiuk died at Fair Acres Geriatric Center
on March 30, and Barclay died at St. Mary's Medical Center on Aug. 19.
Both victims died in Middletown Township. Fair Acres is in Lima, and St.
Mary's is in Bucks County.
3. An "accessory to murder3," in my opinion, was used in each incident. It was a car
in Hasiuk's case and a gun in Barclay's. As a result Barnes was charged with
attempted homicide or murder in its basic form, which could be changed to
intentional homicide (murder)--from largely non-criminal to criminal. This fact
from the Barclay incident could be the same result for the Hasiuk perpetator.
4. Barnes got 10-20 years in state prison4 for attempted homicide or attempted
murder (same thing), which could happen to the driver of the vehicle that struck
Hasiuk at the corner of Route 352 and Sycamore Mills Road in Edgemont early
Halloween.
5. Both died as a result of their injuries. Barclay did directly, according to Bucks
County Coroner Joseph Campbell, when he got a urinary tract infection, which
Campbell says is common in paraplegics who lose bladder control. The loss and
possible infection is likely with Hasiuk, though unproved. Autopsy reports
should be public unless sealed by court order, so what is the coroner in Hasiuk's
case hiding? Is this a payoff?
"He was trying to communicate and talk, but he couldn't," says Hasiuk's
uncle, Adam.
About what? Was this victim trying to say how he felt, either in pain or in
reassurance to his relatives? Or was he ready to reveal the perpetrator's identity
in the hit-and-run car accident that left him paralyzed.
Maybe this conjecture sounds as if from a mystery novel romanticized, but
one thing's for certain.
The offender, if caught, could be jailed or fined on charges of vehicular
homicide, also called vehicular manslaughter in Pennsylvania, according to
Patrick Arthur & Associates, Criminal Defense Attorneys of Philadelphia, Pa.
Jail time is "significant;" practicing attorneys Longwell & Gentle of Orlando,
Fl. note that a criminal can serve up to 15 years. And the charge doesn't rule out
a maximum felony for DUI or murder--changing the venue from county to state
prison.
Something about this case has investigating trooper Joseph Durham especially
interested.
The story sounds just as mysterious as the "white vehicle with a dark stripe on
its side" or the accident's occurrence "in the early morning hours of
Halloween."
Hasiuk has apparently vanished without a trace. Records destroyed five years
from the accident, according to Pennsylvania State Police at Media Barracks,
and no recognition of Joseph Durham5.
According to the pamphlet Open Records: A Citizen's Guide, put out by the
Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition in April 2007, "police blotters
and incident reports" plus "victim-related information…in police or court
records" are public unless there's a reason for it's being withheld, possibly due
to investigation.
Well, I think there are reasons to investigate. But among others, the most
important is Hasiuk's death at Fair Acres Geriatric Center, a county-run
nursing home, on Friday, March 30.
The perpetrator may have just turned criminal.
The way in which this reporter-intern found the article, though, presents ethical
challenges regarding how he would use the sensitive information unearthed. The only
charge from his editor was to find an investigative angle encompassing a person or issue
in her newspaper's coverage area of Delaware County. A source, who works with
a friend of Hasiuk's family, heard from the friend what the reporter-intern thought would
cost the source's job and should not be revealed due to the unconfirmed information: The
perpetrator might be a prominent 6 Delaware County lawyer or judges' daughter. Of
course, that fact is not known based on the Delaware County Daily Times article. As
excited as the rookie reporter-intern was, he still wanted the article to verify the claim. He
just never thought his search through http://www.reporter.org/desktop/tips/johndoe.htm, a
website listed in a college textbook, would allow him to potentially steal Hasiuk's identity
by giving him the hit-and-run victim's social security number as listed in a Social
Security Death Index via rootsweb, an ancestry.com community. The reporter-intern
input name combinations into the Index to verify the correct one that led him to the
article. Impatience and tiredness wearing on him after countless hours of searching, there
seemed no other way to find the information. He told an online gaming community his
desire to find more news regarding the article's then month's-old subject, who played
Dungeons & Dragons as the article noted, after identifying himself as a reporter--to no
avail.
About four miles away from The NEWS of Delaware County's former Havertown, Pa.
office, Kathleen E. Carey had been working as a general assignment reporter since May
1998. She had covered cops, education, municipal coverage, courts, county government,
and politics during that time. Graduating with an "expedited" degree in print journalism
from New York University in 1992, Carey worked at The Quakertown Free Press--a
biweekly newspaper where she also interned for two summers in college--until
1993 and at the then Gannett daily The Reporter in Lansdale, Pa. from 1993 to 1998.
At different points in her career, Carey has covered and interviewed presidents, the
Republican National Convention, the first inauguration of George Bush in Washington,
William Clinton's volunteer summit, various natural disasters, murders, and trials--even
witnessed Leon Moser's 1995 execution for killing his family in a church parking lot on
Palm Sunday 1985.
When she received Ronald Hasiuk's obituary on Saturday, March 31, Carey worked to
make it a story due to its newsworthiness--a point she reiterates. Her actions were done
that day, amidst covering the opening of trout season at various Delaware County creeks
and writing "about half" of 15 other obits. She expanded on the tip from the obituary that
Hasiuk was left a paraplegic after a hit-and-run October 1991 by calling the family and
talking to police, among other things. "If I didn't do what I did, it would have never been
a story and would have been relegated to an obit in the back of the paper," she said. "It is
news that a young man dies after spending 16 years as a quadriplegic after being a victim
in a hit-and-run accident. Not getting the story done, which she had only a day to write,
would have been an "injustice."
Carey, who is now the Business reporter, implies she would do a follow-up if not for
police reporters Cindy Scharr and Rose Quinn, who take over for the multi-purpose
general assignment reporter during the week.
"If they [Hasiuk family] think it is a cover-up, I welcome them to deal with the daily
demands of a reporter," she said. I would not withhold any information I receive. It is my
job to disseminate it"--overcoming emotion to ask questions, which may be viewed by
others as rude, in a respectful way.
But does Hasiuk's family think it's a cover up? Brigette ReDavid, the managing editor
of this former reporter-intern, originally thought that the family would want or try to talk
if that was the case. Since they have not, to this researcher's knowledge, his editor
responded in the negative to pursuing the story further. No matter that Hasiuk's late father
was an ex-Ridley Park police chief who committed suicide when he was found to be
embezzling money from a local swim club. Despite obtaining apparently incriminating
evidence7 against Fair Acres, this researcher was unable to successfully contact his
former boss by press time to try to convince her to update her judgment.
If cop Walter Barclay's case is any indication of the popularity a Hasiuk follow could
receive--especially if allegations against Fair Acres and/or against other parties involved
are true--then it would mean that Hasiuk's case could spread nationwide. The same
reason why Carey thought Hasiuk's accident was newsworthy was generally the same
reason a columnist from The Philadelphia Inquirer and five newspapers around the
United States felt Barclay's death contained news value: Novelty/Human Interest. Almost
all newspapers used the Associated Press wire or similar service, which is an agreement
where subscribing newspapers can take each others' articles.
The Philadelphia Inquirer decided to play up this news value by using an interesting
technique for its unprecedented nature in the story's scope. Metropolitan Columnist
Daniel Rubin exclusively interviewed cop killer William J. Barnes in Graterford prison
for a front page Thursday metro column-- noted in a Sept. 13 AP story, "Bail denied for
71-year old"--in the interest of hearing from someone for whom media access isn't easy
since his re-arrest upon cop Walter T. Barclay's death. He says his metropolitan editor
told him this "would be an interesting story" to examine how Barnes feels about the 40-
year-old case and now being charged with murder. The editor also advised him to "go
long, so you can tell more of the story." It was a story Rubin thought needed to be told to
the fullest possible, based on a legally-obtained interview with a consenting criminal
whose viewpoint "has been missing from the coverage for the past couple days." There
were no [ethical] red flags… [and]…journalistically, this is a no-brainer," he said. Rubin
also recognized the strengths of a letter, also mentioned in the AP story, sent by Barnes
the day after he was charged to the newspaper via editor Dorothy Brown, who gave
Barnes her business card after seeing him on a prison tour. "It was precious, because that
was a way to get his voice directly into the paper…because the key when something like
this happens is what do the different sides, what do the different players say. And this
was a way of getting at what one of them said."
While this former reporter-intern could encounter interviews from Hasiuk's family and
maybe letters that might provide information if and when others are more reluctant,
Rubin somewhat agrees with Brigette ReDavid. "In a case like this you ask the family if
they want to talk about it," he said, "and if they do, they're giving up their rights to
privacy boldly. And then you do it, if you think it's an interesting story." What would be
better than perhaps agitating the family, who has not sought press attention--perhaps in
their wanting to forget that horrible Halloween night in 1991-- would be to search court
records for civil litigation in the hopes of an accident record, which might prove
challenging. Kathleen Carey's statement from the investigating agency of Media Barracks
that "accident records are purged within five years" is not a news hole, as she says she's
telling the reader why she could not provide more information in a timely manner. If it
was an accident that caused someone's death, "I would imagine those records wouldn't
be purged," Rubin said. "Five years, from acts that ultimately killed somebody,
seems…rather short."
But the Hasiuk case is different from Barclay's in ways this former reporter-intern did
not see--ways that may not necessarily be as open investigation-inducing for four reasons
Rubin cites. One reason is that, in the Barclay case, a police officer was shot. Another is
that someone was charged with murder after 41 years. Still yet another is "when someone
shoots a police officer, that's…unusual because it displays a pretty high disregard for the
law…[and]…it is threatening to society so it becomes more newsworthy." Lastly,
Philadelphia is noticing a recent rise in gun murders and assaults, according to Rubin, and
the state paying to make a murder case against a 71-year-old man who has been pretty
non-threatening "for decades" has some people angry.
Newspapers outside Pennsylvania8 picked up on the first three differences/news
values, especially noting the age of the case. Tulsa World (OK), which distributes to all
of Oklahoma and part of Kansas, has a total average paid circulation of 119,213 daily and
172,007 on Sundays, according to an Audit Bureau of Circulations report. It picked up
the Sept. 9 story "DA: Never too late to try for murder," which dealt with whether
Lynne Abraham could prove Barclay's death of a urinary tract infection was linked to his
gunshot wounds, which "was a good human interest story." Managing Editor Scott Sines
of The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tenn., a metropolitan daily circulating to over
30 counties in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, with some counties in Missouri,
says of a Sept. 5 article on events surrounding a trial: "We'd have to go and talk to
people who were working the wire desk that night, [but]...I think it's probably because of
the death of a police officer the judgment was probably made by the wire enterers that
that was something that there might well've been some interest in." Its average
distribution is 150,386 daily and 194,090 on Sundays. The newsroom of the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fl. said in response to why it ran a Sept. 5 story
on the same: If we think it's something that's interesting regardless of its happening
outside of Florida, then we will print it or we will reprint it. Managing Editor
Dewey English of the daily Press-Register of Mobile, Ala. says of a Sept. 5 article on
Barnes' then possible murder trial: "We didn't have a conference over it; it was one of the
main wire stories that we considered." This daily newspaper, which is the second largest
in the sate, circulates 100,000 daily in coastal and southwest Alabama and 115,000 on
Sundays, having an estimated 1/4 million readers in a regional media market. "I think
what triggers in my mind the decision to run it," said Keith Elchert, assistant managing
editor of news at The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Ind., on the then possible homicide
charge story of Aug. 23, "was just the odd nature of the case. That there can be four
decades between the shooting and the death and then for that to be played out in a murder
charge, I just thought the readers would find the irony of that as some interest." Fort
Wayne and northeast Indiana's largest newsgathering agency, the Gazette supports 11
counties in northeast Indiana and four in northwest Ohio, with 60,000 daily circulation
and 110,000 on Sundays.
A principle of investigative reporting is to build a circle around the central figure(s),
working from the outside to the inside, which, of course, is the hard-to-reach Hasiuk
family. Interviewing the family would be difficult because deciding to run a follow to the
Hasiuk hit-and-run case is an example of the gray area between rule- and ends-based
thinking. If a journalist hears ReDavid and, to an extent, Rubin say to wait for the
family, a story may not be done at all since insinuation about all parties involved or using
unconfirmed reports without talking to the family contradicts seeking the truth and
reporting it. The truth has to be accurate, and it's a good idea to seek as many sources as
possible and on all sides of an issue to avoid bias, etc. Using ends-based thinking is the
other extreme, which would also result in no story being done over fear of what the
family might think of their mysterious and sudden limelight status. This is one instance of
where investigative reporting is risky. But the playing field changes when a national story
such as that of cop Walter T. Barclay, Jr. merits examining the perpetrator's "unbroken
chain" regarding Hasiuk's death. We may have to wait for another 41 years for that to
happen.