Your journalistic ethics are showing

Blogger Patterico notes Steve Lopez' second look at an old story, and decides it's not a slam-dunk case after all.

Back in 2004, Steve Lopez wrote the following about the incident in which LAPD officer John Hatfield hit a car theft suspect with a flashlight:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead and investigate, but I saw what I saw.

. . . .

Although this thing looked bad, Bratton said from 3,000 miles away, "There should be no rush to judgment before the investigations are completed."

Guess what, Chief. My investigation is complete.

Any cop who'd whack a captured suspect 11 times, on live TV no less, is too dumb to keep past lunch.

Although Lopez proudly declared in 2004 he didn't need to get Hatfield's side of the story, on Sunday he did exactly that: he sat down with Hatfield himself and watched the video as Hatfield talked him through it. The result is a remarkable column titled Good cop makes bad decision.

[T]he case is more nuanced than I acknowledged at the time, and for that, I apologize to Hatfield.

Of course, there was an easy way for Lopez to have learned about these nuances at the time: he could have done what journalists are supposed to do, and try to get both sides of the story. Instead, he did what most journalists do: he made up his mind going in, and belittled the side he didn't like. Having finally looked into the other side now, four years later, Lopez learns something that surprises him. While he still thinks Hatfield's actions were excessive, it turns out that Hatfield actually isn't a bad guy...

In theory, all journalists learn to do this as part of their training. In theory. In practice, journalists have a herd mentality, and the herd follows certain narratives without a hint of professional skepticism. Stories that support this narrative are "too good to check", and get the treatment Lopez gave this story in 2004. The narrative is that cops are brutal racists. Nuance can wait.