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Creative storytelling about the new AG

By Mark Obbie

When I heard Steve Inskeep's intro of this Ari Shapiro piece on NPR's Morning Edition, I had my skeptic's hat on (it's a rather handsome piece of headwear, but I'll save details on that for another post). Shapiro's relatively lengthy report (nearly eight minutes) focused on Eric Holder's innovation as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, during the Clinton administration, called "community prosecutions." It's like community policing, except for lawyers rather than cops: building relationships and trust at the neighborhood level to make for more effective law enforcement and public safety. In the handoff from anchor to reporter, Inskeep provided an ostensible news hook: What would this program tell us about Holder's approach to his new job running the entire Justice Department? That's a stretch, I thought, because running the D.C. U.S. attorney's office is like none other in the country. It's the local law enforcement agency, akin to every other big city's district attorney office. That logical flaw in the story's premise grew sharper in Shapiro's first anecdotes. Although interesting and well told, they were about homicide investigations and low-level drug busts -- not common fare for ordinary federal prosecutors. But then Shapiro used sources to connect the dots -- to ask how a "holistic" approach to law enforcement in the D.C. example would translate to the national stage. He quoted close observers of Holder's methods about how the innovation illustrates broader points about Holder's ways of thinking. With Inskeep pointing out explicitly in the closing that Holder's job as attorney general is not at all analogous to his D.C. job, he and Shapiro managed to avoid the trap that I thought they had fallen into -- and gave their listeners a relevant, timely insight into the nation's new top law enforcement officer.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on February 18, 2009 (boomark / email).