Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ‘Police Beat’ column identifies suspects by race

Arkansas Times
Managing editor Frank Fellone says the paper has used race in the column “for years and years,” and that the newsroom standard is “to use all available information provided by the police.” The Democrat-Gazette’s policy is “at odds with the conventions of many other news outlets, which avoid racial or ethnic identifiers unless they’re important or, in some cases, if victims provide detailed descriptions,” writes Lindsey Millar of the Arkansas Times. When asked if he had a sense that his paper’s standard for using racial information in crime reports was unconventional compared to other newsrooms, Fellone told Millar: “I don’t know.”