Newspapers have a long history of publishing local court reports.
In Jasper, court is held every second and fourth Thursday of the month. There may be more than 100 names on the court appearance list but, spend a single day in court and you will see, only a handful of these are resolved each week.
Most cases are pushed to future dates to allow for hiring lawyers, reviewing case details, organizing and setting trial dates, and other reasons.
But the few that are resolved with circumstances surrounding the crime told, the Fitzhugh reports on.
As a newspaper we cannot pick and choose who we publish articles about depending on who is local or who we know personally. That would be unethical.
There are many rules and laws which govern court reporting and the journalists at the Fitzhugh are trained to abide by them.
But why do we print these stories?
The short answer is: It’s in the public interest.
That doesn’t mean a court story is necessarily something the public would be interested in reading, more that it is in the interest of the public to know what is happening in our town and court.
Open court hearings, and the reporting of these hearings by the press, are fundamental to open democracy. Taxpayers and citizens have a right to know what’s going on in their area and how their money is being spent - and that justice is being done.
Court news informs the public of broken laws, breaches, and can highlight crime trends in town. It can even act as a deterrent against crime.
We can understand why those who go through the courts, their families and friends, can be angry or upset when their name appears in the newspaper - but these are important reasons that the press covers court.
In terms of mental health, mental illness affects people of all ages, education, income levels and cultures and in any given year, one in five people in Canada will personally experience a mental health problem or illness.
This includes many people who go through the court system.
In most cases, a mental health problem is a ‘mitigating factor’ or ‘extenuating circumstance’, meaning its disclosure can result in reduced charges or a lesser sentence - hence its mention in an article.
Sometimes, like in a certain recent hearing, intimate details are not mentioned in open court. Other times we do not write about them for sensitivity reasons.
Having said all this, the Fitzhugh will no longer be covering regular court days.
In Jasper, the community does not seem to want to read about their peers appearing in court. Reports of many cases, from assaults and probation breaches to drink-driving offences, have caused ripples through the community that have turned into backlash against this newspaper.
I have been threatened by members of the public because of court coverage - and that is not a price I am willing to pay.
This is a small and close-knit community and it appears that our regular court reports are now seen to be doing more harm than good, so we will be suspending them for the time being.
We would welcome letters to the editor on the community's wishes about the future of court coverage.
Fuchsia Dragon
