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: Begging the Question

Getting an early start on next year's Pulitzer race

By "Milbarge" and "Fitz-Hume"

The website for the St. Petersburg Times -- make that the two-Pulitzers-winning St. Pete Times -- has an interesting new addition. It's a prominent link to a site called Tampa Bay Mug Shots. It's pretty much what it says -- a site providing mugshots for local arrestees. The main St. Pete Times site shows the three most recent check-ins at the Crossbar Hotel.

I'll admit the site is fascinating to scroll through, especially with the search options. My favorite so far is the meth head being help upright by a jailer wearing plastic gloves. But it's also a little unpleasant. Why does this site exist? It claims to be a "public service," but it's also clearly something of a shaming sanction.

I'm not sure how this site serves the public. The mug shots themselves, and the information about the charges, are already publicly available on the counties' websites. If you want to look up a specific person, that's easy enough. Who needs to see every arrestee? Are they trying to make this a Felony Facebook? Misdemeanor MySpace?

And the problem with calling this a shaming sanction is the simple fact that none of these people are guilty of anything yet. Sure, most of them will end up with a conviction, but not all. In addition, posting some of these mugshots on the main newspaper website implies that the arrests are newsworthy, and most aren't.

All in all, while I agree the site is interesting in the same way The Smoking Gun's mugshot collection is, I'm not convinced it should be promoted as the next example of fine public service journalism from an established paper or its affiliated website.

Full post as published by Begging the Question on May 07, 2009 (boomark / email).