PressEthic

David Lemus has been in prison for murder for the last fourteen years. Today, he was set free and went home. Miscarriage of justice? No, since Lemus didn’t commit the crime in the first place. When Lemus and Olmado Hidalgo were convicted of the murder of Palladium club bouncer Marcus Peterson in 1992, the case seemed to be a slam-dunk against them. But since then, new evidence has come out that convinced even the foreperson of the jury that convicted the two men, that they are indeed innocent. The actual gunman even confessed to the crime in media interviews, saying over and over again that he’d never met Hidalgo and Lemus. But for some reason, the city of New York refused to look at the case, and see if there had been a mistake made.

This summer, Hidalgo’s conviction was reversed, and today David Lemus became a free man. Why does this matter? Because his release was thanks in part to an extensive investigation conducted by the show “Dateline NBC.” “Dateline” spent a long time collecting evidence, and convincing people to listen to the story.

The success of “Dateline” is proof that journalism is not just about money, not just about raking in the ad dollars, not just about presenting ads to people with a little bit of news stuck in between. This proves that good, solid journalism can change things. This is a reason for us all to be in this business – besides the great money, of course.

But beyond that, it’s an important lesson in the art of news judgment. When you think about what actually is news, this story doesn’t really rate that high. It’s a story about two guys accused of murder who deny that they did it, and who get convicted and go to jail anyway. There’s no shortage of murderers who proclaim their innocence, this story doesn’t impact a great deal of people, and it’s not unusual in any way. There’s really not much there, when you look at it on the surface. But somebody decided that there was more to the story, and that “Dateline” needed to pursue it. And the result speaks for itself.

News judgment is not really something that can be taught. It has to be tailored – it depends on the size of the newspaper, the market it has to reach, how local or national the reach is. But there’s something to be said for experience as well. I’m sure that the person who decided to pursue the Palladium story wasn’t a rookie. Hopefully, there are more people picking stories like this instead of stories like “the runaway bride.”