On Friday, July 5, I was at home enjoying a day off when the phone calls and emails started.
It seemed a video taken at a DUI checkpoint in Rutherford County, claiming Rutherford County deputies had violated a young man’s constitutional rights, was going viral. It was appearing all over social media and national news outlets were beginning to take an interest.
It was becoming a national story and to ignore it would have been irresponsible, and I feel, contrary to one letter writer’s opinion, it was indeed news.
There were a lot of moving parts to this story. Our coverage, over several days, was pretty extensive.
Really it is safe to say the first story was published before the video was shot, when we announced on July 3 the checkpoints would be set up.
Our first story on the matter, which included an interview with the driver of the car, Chris Kalbaugh, was published July 6. It included an embed of the video so that our more than 200,000 online readers could see it and judge for themselves.
We published that weekend two opinion pieces. One was a guest column by Axl E. David, the communications director for the Libertarian Party of Tennessee. No-refusal checkpoints misguided is the name of that piece. That was followed by my opinion piece, Deputies, name calling and the Libertarians, which took a different view.
We interviewed an attorney about the checkpoint. He thinks it is legal. We reported on Deputy A.J. Ross’ employment record, which includes a resignation and a rehire, with the Sheriff’s Office.
The DNJ formally took the Sheriff’s Office to task in an editorial for its lack of information and talked with a PR professional about silence as a tactic.
We also had a live conversation between Axl E. David and our readers online.
When the Sheriff did talk, and released the dash cam video, we reported that story, and took time to get Kalbaugh’s reaction to what the Sheriff alleges.
And I concluded the coverage this past Sunday with a discussion more focused on discourse than the issue itself.
On top of that, we left hundreds of comments active on our stories, Facebook page, etc. And contrary to some accusations, we deleted none of these, in hopes it would foster a real conversation about the Fourth Amendment and related issues.
Here’s how I know our coverage was pretty even-handed. Some people are accusing us of being too pro-Sheriff. Some are accusing us of being too pro-Kalbaugh. Some folks will never agree, but I think it was pretty even coverage.
How would you have handled the coverage differently and why?