Florida Station to Stop Posting Mugshots

Scripps owned WTXL (Tallahassee) is stopping a feature that drove a lot of traffic to the station’s website.

WTXL has long posted police mugshots on their website. But now, the station says they are going to stop the daily practice.

WTXL admits that the “Mugshots” section is one of the most popular pages on their site, but they still think it is time to pull the plug on it.

“Our newsroom leaders estimate that two to three times per week, a person will contact us asking to have the report from his or her day of arrest removed. The reasons are often similar – the charges were dropped, reduced or expunged from the person’s record,” the station posted.

“These calls rarely come from those who’ve committed serious crimes, but more often they come from people who made a bad decision that resulted in one night in handcuffs. These folks worry one bad decision will rob them of a future job or admission to college,” they add.

So, WTXL has decided to stop the practice after asking these questions:

“Are arrests for minor crimes newsworthy? Does publishing these booking reports make our community a better place? Are we simply pandering to lurid curiosity? Are we ruining people’s lives or shaming people in our community for minor mistakes?”

WTXL General Manager Matt Brown posted to the station’s website:

“The conclusion we arrived at is this: The booking reports only offer a small slice of a story, and we should no longer publish them because:

- We are not providing further context.

- We are not updating the stories when the facts evolve.

- We are pandering to lurid curiosity – that same desire that triggers rubbernecking at crash scenes.

- We are not showing compassion for those who are affected by news coverage.

As journalists covering news in the Florida panhandle and southern Georgia, we can do better in meeting our code of ethics and your expectations for news. Our commitment to you is to tell stories that go beyond the irrelevant and isolated stories on the crime beat, and instead focus on stories that give you a true sense of your community through context, perspective and impact. We will still cover significant and impactful crimes in your community. We will still publish stories with mugshots of persons wanted or arrested for noteworthy or impactful crimes in your community.

We are not hiding or suppressing public information. While you won’t find the Leon County booking report on our website, the last 30 days of booking reports are easily accessible on the sheriff’s website.

We hope that this decision helps make our community a better place.”