How a Slew of Errors Made Page One   

Sun-Sentinel apologizes for numerous mistakes on prosecutor's story.

A MISCOMMUNICATION BETWEEN REPORTERS, errors from its own clips and incomplete reporting forced South Florida's Sun-Sentinel in March to publish a front-page apology to the Broward State Attorney and his assistants. The paper said an "unsubstantiated" story implied the prosecutors used "faulty information...to improperly prosecute nine people for murder." A detailed list of corrections appeared on the jump page.
The paper was the one issuing most of the faulty information in this case. How did the mistakes happen?
The flawed story ran on A1 Saturday, March 3, the day after the Miami Herald reported that famed defense attorney Barry Scheck had called for an independent review of all homicide cases investigated by the Broward Sheriff's Office during the tenure of a particular detective. Scheck, a member of O.J. Simpson's defense team, founded an organization that helps inmates obtain DNA tests to prove their innocence. In the preceding days, the Sun-Sentinel had reported on a state-ordered investigation into a Broward case in which Frank Lee Smith died in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him.
The March 3 story by reporters John Holland and Ardy Friedberg quoted Scheck criticizing Broward State Attorney Michael Satz and his assistants. It said the paper's own investigation had "found at least nine people charged with murder who were freed because of tainted evidence and confessions obtained by the homicide detectives unit," and that Satz had "declined to comment on any of the cases."
Well, not quite. Satz spokesman Ron Ishoy says Friedberg called him Friday afternoon, first requesting files from all homicide cases investigated by the sheriff's office over 18 years or so, "hundreds and hundreds" of cases. At Ishoy's suggestion, Friedberg then faxed a list of eight cases for which he wanted files first. Ishoy told AJR in an e-mail that Friedberg knew an attorney would have to go through each file and block certain personal information. "He knew there was no chance we would physically be able to make these redacted materials available that day, or for a couple of days," Ishoy wrote.
When Friedberg told Holland they couldn't get the files right away, Holland, the main reporter on the story, took it to mean that Satz's office wouldn't comment, says Sun-Sentinel Editor Earl Maucker. (Friedberg declined an interview request; Holland did not return phone calls.)
Holland wrote the story using interviews with defense attorneys and the paper's clips, Maucker says, some of which contained errors or were incomplete since the cases had evolved. Holland included a stinging response from Ishoy about Scheck's comments.
That story included numerous inaccuracies regarding jail time served, charges and evidence in more than a half-dozen cases, and a failure to mention that the special prosecutor investigating the Smith case was appointed by the governor at Satz's request, a fact the paper had reported on March 1 and 2. The story also claimed that Satz's office for 10 years prevented Smith from obtaining DNA tests. (It didn't; according to the correction, his own lawyers did not request the tests until he'd been on death row for 12 years.)
Ishoy fired off a memo to Maucker, calling the story "grossly unfair, recklessly prepared, startlingly disrespectful" and "potentially libelous."
Monday, at Maucker's invitation, Satz, Ishoy and several assistant state attorneys met with him, the two reporters and two assistant city editors. The attorneys laid out their complaints. Holland, Friedberg and county courts reporter Paula McMahon spent the rest of the week examining the errors.
On Saturday, March 10, the Sun-Sentinel published its apology in a follow-up story in the same above-the-fold, page-one position. In it, Maucker defended the thrust of the original story, but said, "there is no question that much of what we reported was out of context and included factual errors. We owe Mike Satz and his assistants an apology."
Maucker refuses to discuss any "interactions" with the reporters. Holland has since moved to the Sun-Sentinel's South Broward bureau. Friedberg's byline has continued to appear over stories about the state attorney's and sheriff's offices' ongoing review of DNA evidence in 11 murder cases involving inmates on death row or serving life sentences.
The Sun-Sentinel's mea culpa came less than two weeks after the Boston Globe's front-page apology for a story that said adultery may have been a motive in a double slaying in New Hampshire. The paper's anonymous sources later admitted the affair theory was mistaken.
Is a change underway in how papers handle such incidents?
"It certainly does seem to me that journalists are becoming more willing to...admit our mistakes publicly, and particularly when they're big ones," says Kim Walsh-Childers, who teaches journalism at the University of Florida. But she wonders if newspapers' attorneys may push for some of this by saying, "If you apologize and run a correction you are far less likely to be sued for libel."
"It's a matter of fairness," Maucker says. "I think when the story reaches a certain level of error and it's on the front page, the only correct thing for an editor to do is stand up and correct it."