Indy Station Called Out After Report

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The Marion County Sheriff's Office in Indiana thinks that WTHR did not do a fair report on the death of an inmate in their jail. 

The Sheriff's office took to Facebook to call out the station for airing a "dishonest report."

This what they posted and below that is the story that WTHR aired. 

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WTHR-13 Broadcasts Dishonest Report on MCSO

On July 3, 2018, WTHR-13 televised a dishonest report concerning the 2015 death of Marion County Jail inmate Marvin Sharp. The Sharp death investigation was conducted by outside independent agencies: IMPD, Marion County Coroner’s Office (MCCO), and the Forensic Services Agency (FSA). These agencies concluded that Mr. Sharp died as a result of suicide. MCSO did NOT conduct the death investigation, but rather conducted an internal affair investigation on violations of MCSO policies and procedures. That investigation resulted in the discipline of 16 deputies. This was publicly discussed by MCSO on October 14, 2015, as detailed in the WTHR-13 report on that date. At that time, WTHR-13 did not request any additional information on the discipline.

The current WTHR-13 report fails to disclose the outside independent investigation by IMPD for this jail death. This is critically important information which WTHR-13 has purposely omitted. The report was prepared by a WTHR-13 personality whose husband is Assistant Chief of IMPD. This obvious conflict suggests a serious breach of ethics in reporting.

MCSO has responded to numerous access to public records requests by WTHR-13 on this matter, and provided the current Jail Commander, Lt. Col. James Martin, for an interview of approximately 25 minutes. Previously, MCSO asked WTHR-13 for a complete video copy of that interview. However, WTHR-13 refused the request. The July 3rd broadcast utilized only 1 minute of the interview of Lt. Col. Martin which failed to disclose the complete context of the interview. In the interest of fairness, MCSO has once again requested a complete copy of Lt. Col. Martin’s interview.

WTHR-13 seems to suggest to MCSO that Mr. Sharp’s death was not a suicide. In response, MCSO reminded WTHR-13’s personality that the death investigation was conducted by outside independent investigatory agencies, IMPD, MCCO and FSA. Thus, MCSO suggested that if WTHR-13 has evidence to support its innuendo, it should report that to IMPD immediately. Instead, it has chosen to broadcast a salacious report alleging “secrets” and a “cover-up” involving the death of an alleged sex offender. That death was fully investigated by 3 outside agencies over three years ago. There are no “secrets,” and there is no “cover-up.” MCSO has been completely transparent throughout.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office appreciates the difficult job that the news media has to keep the public informed and acknowledges that the media has been unfairly attacked as “fake news.” Those attacks should encourage reporters and news stations to ensure that their reports meet the ethical guidelines set forth in the Code of Ethics for the Society of Professional Journalists. The Preamble of that Code states that published reports should be “accurate, fair and thorough.” The Marion County Sheriff’s Office does not believe that this recent WTHR-13 report lives up to these standards.