The New York Times’ public editor on Monday addressed a storm of outrage following the newspaper’s publication of the name of the street where Ferguson, Mo. police Officer Darren Wilson lives outside St. Louis.
A blog post revealed last week that Wilson quietly got married to a fellow Ferguson police officer in October. The post, written by Times reporters Julie Bosman and Campbell Robertson, identified the town and street where the couple own a home. Conservative media outlets had a field day with the post, and GotNews.com founder Charles C. Johnson even published Bosman’s and Robertson’s home addresses in retaliation.
“The facts of the situation have been widely misreported and misunderstood, and my office has received hundreds of emails on the subject from angry readers who erroneously believe that The Times published Mr. Wilson’s address. (Some readers also wrongly believe that The Times published his phone number as well),” public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote Monday.
The original post on Wilson’s marriage included a photo of his marriage certificate, which the Times later removed because it “contained information that should not have been made public,” according to an editor’s note. Sullivan clarified that the address listed on the marriage license was actually just the address of a local law firm.
Sullivan said the reporters on the story were being “viciously” targeted, and reported that Times executive editor Dean Baquet was “outraged” for his writers. She also pointed out that Wilson’s street name had been reported by other news outlets as far back as August.
But the public editor also agreed with some critics, including the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, that publishing even the street name where Wilson lives was “unnecessary.”
“With the benefit of hindsight, even publishing the street name may have been unwise in such an emotionally fraught situation,” Sullivan wrote. “But the reality of what was published bears little resemblance to what The Times and its reporters are being accused of — and pilloried for.”
