Just over a week ago, the Chronicle‘s Rick Casey penned a column that was basically a recap of a series of Chicago Tribune stories on a death penalty case in Texas, which (of course) Casey spun as a(nother) case of a questionable execution in Texas.
Unlike some of his prior efforts recapping the work of reporters at other newspapers, Casey doesn’t appear to have lifted any whole phrases (just some quotes). He doesn’t credit the Tribune reporters who did the work (Maurice Possley and Steve Mills), but that’s apparently one of the niceties that can be foregone when you’re a bigshot metro/state columnist. The fact that the prosecutors are still convinced the right man was put to death gets only a sentence in Casey’s version. The Chron.com version of the story does not link to the Chicago Tribune series.
That series is located here (Part One, Part Two, Part Three). While the stories are certainly examples of anti-death-penalty activist journalism, at least the contentions of the prosecutors are presented in the stories, along with deep background and plenty of speculation as to what might have happened.
The newspaper of the future — one whose editors truly believe in the mantra of “news as conversation” — will be less hesitant to link to stories at other news outlets. And the newspaper of the future might just find that columnists who recap the work of other reporters and bloggers aren’t nearly as important as they once were. Alas, we have not quite reached that stage just yet (although Richard Justice’s heavy link-blogging to other news outlets of late deserves kudos).
