At a time when student journalists are gaining traction across the country — linking with partners that include, for example, the New York Times — one of their flagship organizations in Illinois, Medill University’s Innocence Project, is getting roundly lambasted by the state.
Founded in 1999 and led by veteran reporter David Protess, undergraduates at the Innocence Project have uncovered evidence that to date has freed 11 innocent men from prison, five of them on death row. They’ve been featured by 60 Minutes, and are credited with helping reorient America’s debate on the death penalty.
But now, the Cook County state attorney’s office is subpoenaing their latest investigation, seeking grading criteria and emails from students involved in the case. The attorney’s office says that they respect Illinois’s reporter shield law, and that they believe it should apply to student journalists — just not these ones.
According to the state, students from the Innocence Project bribed one source by giving him $60 in cab fare, and ‘flirted’ with another to get testimony. (Hmmm. Should flirting disqualify you from getting protection under shield laws? If so, at least a third of the reporters I know wouldn’t be covered.)
Medill students aren’t alone in their fight to take on the tough cases bypassed by other reporters. At the Center for Public Integrity, students from Georgetown University have been working for over a year to identify former Wall Street Journal Daniel Pearl’s real killer. In 2008, students at Columbia contributed to a front-page investigation at the New York Times.
Neither are they alone in dismissing the state’s gambit against an institution that has embarrassed Illinois’s criminal justice system for years. This week, the Associated Press, the New York Times, CBS News, and the Washington Post — along with over a dozen other news groups — all filed a brief in support of the Innocence Project’s crusade.
To read more about the case, check out the February issue of Chicago Magazine, which has a great profile of the Medill Innocence Project’s Protess, as well as his current nemesis and state attorney, Anita Alvarez.
Photo Credit: Truthout.org