by Ralph Langer, Executive Vice President and Editor
The Dallas Morning News
This article originally appeared in Quill Magazine, April 1997 issue, page 19, and is used with permission.
The discussion took place over parts of several days before we decided to publish a story that said Timothy McVeigh acknowledged to his defense team that he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City and that the hour chosen for the explosion was designed to maximize the body count.
Even as the material itself was being assessed and a possible story drafted, senior editors at The Dallas Morning News, sometimes with our lead First Amendment attorney, discussed the important, threshold question: whether or not to publish. We had already determined that the material was valid.
Our attorney’s opinion, later publicly stated as well, was that the information was legally obtained. The decision process covered-multiple times and from several perspectives-the basic questions concerning use of material from the defense files and the possible impact on the trial.
At least a few critics have suggested that The News gave no thought whatever to the effect on the trial. We had concern about the trial but, ultimately, came to believe that the information in that part of the material was of national importance and that we were obligated to publish it.
We believe that the courts-in particular the federal courts-have many tools available to ensure that a fair jury is empaneled. There are other means available to the judge to conduct the trial in a fair way even under the intense news coverage that this trial would certainly generate.
We concluded that the court could and would oversee a proper trial. U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch agreed with that conclusion and so have the defense attorney (off and on) and the prosecutors. It’s worth noting that many aspects of the evidentiary case against Timothy McVeigh have been reported over the intervening two years. This includes detailed telephone records; allegations that McVeigh’s fingerprint is on a receipt for fertilizer chemically identical to the bomb; witnesses to rental of the Ryder truck which carried the bomb; and other parts of the case.
Because of inaccurate accusations by lead defense attorney Stephen Jones, we were forced to respond publicly. This caused the furor to grow and to continue long past the time it probably otherwise would have died down.
Jones’ charges were quite successful in focusing attention more on the messenger and less on the message.
Almost immediately, Jones alleged that we had given him the name of our source. Several days later he repeated the charge, that time suggesting that it might have been a “Freudian slip.”
The News never gave Jones a name or a hint or a description of any source in this case. He may have been attempting to smoke out anyone who had provided in-formation to us.
He also alleged that The News had stolen the information and had “hacked” into his computer files.
Also totally untrue.
After several days of changing responses from Jones, The News published a graphic showing how his positions had changed during the first three days.
For example, on the first day the defense said no such document existed in their files. They said they had the electronic -ability to quickly check that. Attorney Jones said he would know if such document or documents existed in the files and they did not,
At the same time, he said we may have “stolen” the documents which he said didn’t exist.
He suggested that we may have been “hoaxed” by an individual he named who, he said, had ill-will toward The News.
Within a short time, he indirectly acknowledged that the documents existed but blended the two accusations by saying that the documents were present in defense materials but claiming that he knew they were “hoaxed” because the defense had fabricated them. He said this was part of a sting operation against neo-Nazis or Middle East terrorist sources or others who might be tricked into talking to the defense if they thought they were not targets of an investigation since McVeigh had already acknowledged doing the bombing.
Eventually he said his staff researched faking a defense document and concluded it is “ethical and proper.”
The last word on this subject came days later when the investigator whose name is on the defense reports said he never falsified anything, that he only wrote down whatever the defendant told him and that he sent the material directly to Stephen Jones, the attorney.
Deciding to publish was not a short discussion, and a legitimate debate over that decision is both inevitable and healthy. I believe the discussion needs to be separated from the diversionary and inaccurate charges that encrusted the public conversation in the first week after publication.
