Warren Jeffs and his happy, happy wives---caught on tape!

Warren Jeffs, the Texas polygamist recently convicted of raping his child-wives, was sent to his richly-deserved prison sentence with the help of some horrific tape recordings of Jeffs proselytizing his young victims on their God-directed duty to satisfy his sexual needs, and more tapes that recorded his grunts and pants as he had sexual intercourse with them.

The Salt Lake Tribune requested and received copies of the tapes as well as other evidence in the trial. Then, according to an explanation in the paper, it editors had extensive discussions internally regarding the journalistic ethics of making the tapes generally available online. The paper’s decision:

“We opted to post only clips because we did not believe it would be ethical to make recordings of sexual assault, in action or imminent, easily available on the Web. Young girls can be heard in the tapes, and the jury’s decision was clear: These girls are a predator’s victims. In our role as journalists covering difficult stories, we vow to do our jobs while minimizing harm. In choosing not to provide these materials, we acted to minimize harm.

“What you will hear if you listen to the clips is Jeffs explaining and justifying his abuse of young girls in the name of religion. His “teaching” is helpful in understanding the case and the jury’s decision.”

This is hypocrisy of the highest order, and an abuse of a news organization’s function. The news media are not anointed guardians of what the public can and cannot know, and it isn’t up to journalists to keep hidden material that it thinks may be “harmful.”  If the court, which is empowered to keep certain evidence away from the public, had decided that it was in the best interest to do so, then it could have sealed the tapes under court order. It did not. The tapes are part of public record now, and the news media represents the public’s access to it.

An editorial in another Utah publication crystalized the absurdity of the Tribune’s position here, though unintentionally. “Since when did freedom of the press trump a person’s right to privacy?” the writer queries.

I don’t know what country Jen Watkins has been living in, but it isn’t this one. “Since when,” Jen? This is the same news media that camps out on the lawn of any figure who becomes central to a news story. The attitude of the press has always been that “the public’s right to know” trumps privacy.

The paper acted, it says, to “minimize harm.” When did this become a standard that journalists took seriously, if revealingsecrets meant selling papers or increasing ratings? Every piece of information stolen by Bradley Manning and placed on Wikileaks found its way into the mainstream media, with no thought being given to the lives it placed in danger or the damage it did to American operations abroad. No paper blanched from publishing the Abu Ghriab photographs, though it was predictable that the photos would intensify anti-American sentiment and make success in Iraq more difficult. Unlike those instances, the tapes of Jeffs engaging in child rape are unlikely to get anyone killed.

Simply put, I don’t trust the motives and judgement of journalists, whose concept of what is ethical changes according to their own self-interest and biases. I do not consent to their serving as our censors. There is no value to making all the tapes available, the Tribune says. Well, they were apparently valuable to the jury, and to those who attended the trial. I’d say that creates a prima facie case that they may be valuable to others. The editors at the Tribune listened to the tapes. What makes them more qualified, responsible or analytical than you or me?

Nothing.

I hear from readers who argue that polygamy is a choice between consenting adults, and should be legal. Might these tapes, which graphically show the reality of the practice in American today, change their minds? I don’t know; I‘d like to find out.

The ethics of America’s journalistic establishment becomes more incoherent and self-serving every day—though the trend will have to end soon, because soon its ethics won’t be able to sink any lower. Based on the Tribune’s blather, I gather that newspapers feel free to help third parties violate court orders, confidentiality agreements, contracts, fiduciary duties, laws and national security, harming companies, stockholders, families, diplomats, CIA agents, and law enforcement efforts, by publishing documents that are supposed to be secret, but they will withhold legal and public information when their own peculiar sensibilities are touched. To prevent harm, don’t you know.

I have another standard to suggest to the press. It should stop being information launderers for stolen material the law says should not be distributed, and pass along any and all public information that comes into its possession.

That includes the Jeffs sex tapes. I don’t care to hear them, thanks,but that should be my decision, not the Salt Lake Tribune’s.