A reader (and former Eagle reporter) wrote yesterday asking me to discuss why, in her view, we did not thoroughly cover the stalking allegations against Wichita State baseball coach Gene Stephenson and why the coverage ran in a non-sports section. Her feeling was that media in town ignored or “glossed-over” the story and she wanted to know more about the case.
One thing we can agree on is that we’d like to know more, also. The reason The Eagle has consistently fought to open court proceedings and records is that we believe there is an inherent public interest in an open and transparent legal system. In this case, however, the lawsuit against Stephenson was ended with a confidential out-of-court settlement, and neither party has agreed to talk to us. I understand why that may frustrate readers who want to know whether the allegations against Stephenson had any basis, or whether the accusations were false.
As our Opinion page staff noted today, accountability is particularly important in this case because Stephenson is a very public figure representing a taxpayer-funded institution.
We would love to have more information to publish, too. But I disagree that this equates to The Eagle treating Stephenson with kid gloves, as this reader believes. In fact, the day we learned of the lawsuit against Stephenson, we published a front-page story on the allegations. Readers sometimes assume that sports writers, who often have less-formal relationships with their sources (teams and coaches) then news beat writers, seek to “cover up” for coaches and players in trouble. No doubt that occasionally happens, but it’s not the norm.
We assigned the Stephenson story to a metro desk reporter who had never met Stephenson and doesn’t recall ever even attending a WSU baseball game. There is no favoritism at play.
After that initial front-page story, we published a second front-page “follow-up” story on the lawsuit. We also published a few small updates when the court case was postponed. The story on the out-of-court settlement ran in the Local & State section.
I agree it’s a judgment call on whether to publish that story there, on 1A, or in Sports. With no details on the settlement available, it didn’t meet our requirement for a front-page story. We published it in the Local section because Stephenson is a more widely known public figure in Wichita and that section has a larger readership than the Sports section. Generally if a sports figure is known only to sports readers, we would run that story in the Sports section. In our view, Stephenson merited a story position to a more broad audience.