Ethics of the Sean Taylor Case

When Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor was murdered in his bedroom last week, the Washington, D.C. media, particularly the Washington Post, ignited in a firestorm. To understand what football and the Redskins mean to Washington, you have to live or have lived there. It’s all we have. Despite the Redskins’ awful performance, overpaid players, and asshole owner, all people in D.C. care about from October to January, is football. In the past 11 days, there have been literally several dozen print and online articles in the Post devoted solely to Taylor’s life and death, along with thousands of comments and tributes written by fans and readers.

Sean Taylor was a beloved player idolized by hundreds of thousands of the Redskins faithful. When word broke of his injury and ultimate death, national and especially local journalists who knew Taylor were put in a tough spot. Obviously, the first priority of a journalist is to report the news factually and accurately. For the most part, this was done tastefully and responsibly, as much so as it can be when the topic is the murder of a celebrity or sports icon. Nevertheless, emotions and opinions snuck their way into articles meant to be news instead of opinions and columns.

Several of the writers, Jason LaCanfora, Michael Wilbon, Mike Wise, Thomas Boswell, and others, knew Taylor personally. I don’t think any of those journalists would have considered Taylor a “friend,” as that itself may have been a breach of journalistic integrity, but writing a story on the death of a person you encounter multiple times a week who is such a public figure has to be a tough thing to do.

There was some negative criticism of the articles written by Post journalists, stemming from “unfair” portrayals of Sean Taylor’s life in a time when many readers thought it inappropriate to speculate. Some took offense to the fact that some articles seemed to label Taylor as a criminal due to past “run ins with law” and that what happened to him was “not surprising.” Articles in which these statements were made were among the first written, when details were sparse and no apparent motive existed. Now that we know the motive was burglary, and that the alleged suspects had no connection to Taylor, any notion that Taylor “had it coming” have been all but squashed. Looking back, the biggest mistake of the writers covering this story was to include such speculation at an early stage when details were not yet clear.

Overall, the news coverage of the Taylor murder by the Washington Post was excellent, several steps above anything produced by ESPN or other national media outlets. In addition to the actual reporting (much of which was done through up-to-the-second blog updates and online-only copy), there was no shortage of editorials, opinions, and columns where many of the same reporters writing the news stories could exhale for a moment and share their true feelings. The Post also amassed a collection of multimedia including photo galleries, audio slideshows, and video tributes to Sean Taylor. All in all, it was first class coverage of a first class player.

Click here to view complete coverage of the Sean Taylor murder

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