A REMINDER FROM THE RITTENHOUSE CASE: LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE IS INVALUABLE AND INVESTIGATORS SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT THE PERIL IT FACES

After Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty of murdering two people and wounding a third in Kenosha, there was a swirl of comment online and on television alleging that the trial revealed a set of facts that proved the media had rushed to judge Rittenhouse and gotten the story wrong for more than a year. Perhaps that was true for people whose idea of “the media” is cable news pundits and social media hot takes. But for those of us who had read the carefully reported stories produced by newspaper and wire service journalists on the ground in Kenosha, the verdict was hardly a surprise. 

An August 2021 story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, with the headline “Kyle Rittenhouse case has long way to go,” detailed the facts around Rittenhouse’s ties to Kenosha, how he acquired the AR-15 rifle and where it was kept, the nuances of Wisconsin state law, his claims to self-defense, and the fact that beneath the circus of Donald Trump-linked lawyers representing the teen, two seasoned Wisconsin defense lawyers were quietly preparing to actually try the case in court. 

As a former journalist of nearly three decades, I understand how narratives around big stories can get tilted and obscured by splashy headlines and shallow readings of the actual reporting. But as a rookie investigator in the corporate intelligence world, I still read the news the same way I did when I was covering it–consuming every word in search of the passages and nuggets of fact that will provide a broader context and a string of dots to connect. 

In the Rittenhouse story, the Journal-Sentinel was hardly the only outlet reporting facts that may have been ignored by Twitter influencers and cable news talking heads in Washington and New York. 

The Kenosha News’s website published more than 200 articles mentioning Rittenhouse before the trial began. Leading up to the trial, their coverage included sober, incremental reporting showing the strengths and weaknesses of the prosecution’s case, the decision-making of the eccentric judge handling the case, and how the local laws applied to the facts at hand.

A week before the trial started, the Associated Press reported a story illustrating what a strong case the defense had, in part because of Wisconsin law. “Legal experts see strong self-defense claim for Kyle Rittenhouse” was published on October 28, a few days before jury selection started. 

But the never-ending social media feeds, coupled with the around-the-clock cable TV breaking news alerts when, actually, not much news has broken, has confused too many of us and softened our ability to sort meaningful facts from eye-grabbing nonsense.

The sober facts were out there all along. You just had to be willing able to look in the right places to find them. 

INVESTIGATORS KNOW WHERE TO LOOK

Working as an investigator, I still rely on the reporting of real shoe-leather journalists as much as I did when I was a newspaper staffer doing “clip search” research before engaging in my own reporting on a topic. Less than a year into my new career, I have already had countless moments of stumbling in the dark trying to understand what some LLC is used for, or what some company with no website actually sells, when a story in a local paper or business journal will lay it all out for me in plain English. Those answers are there for me because some underpaid reporter in Kenosha, or Salt Lake City, or wherever made the phone calls and asked the questions. 

And I look at these misconceptions about the coverage of the Rittenhouse case with real trepidation. It is yet another sign that too many people are looking in the wrong places for their information–a trend that has been whittling away at the resources of newsrooms across the country for decades. 

This has real implications for our business. 

As seasoned investigators, it is imperative that we know where to look for the information we need and understand the limitations and nuances of not just open-source research generally but also the databases we use. Sometimes small local publications – and even large ones – are not included in commercial database searches. Sometimes their stories are free but other times are behind pay walls requiring us to purchase a subscription. Newspapers.com is often an essential investment for an investigator to peek into the archives of small-town papers or the archives of much larger papers. The archives also provide a window into how robust many of those publications used to be. Many of those old papers are gone altogether. And if they’re still around, they are often shoestring operations. 

Much of the economic assault on traditional news gathering has been digital. And the online world has obviously been a boon to the practice of investigations. The availability of public records online means fewer phone calls begging civil servants for help, fewer expensive runners sent to courthouses and government buildings. And, yes, the growth of social media has opened fascinating doors for investigators into the behavior and connections of our research subjects. But all of that self-generated information has its limits. 

Journalists may be flawed, and sometimes bring biases to their work, but there is no substitute for an outside observer deciding what questions should be asked, and then publishing the answers. Even when reporters’ attempts to connect the dots miss the mark, their efforts are usually more useful to us than the press release version of events, or the information that a subject decided to share on social media. 

The old business model of classified and display advertising stuffing the pages and bank accounts of local newspapers is long gone. A handful of national outlets have found that they can grow their paid subscriptions by beefing up their newsrooms because readers are willing to pay for quality journalism. The New York Times now has more than 8 million paying subscribers.  

Let’s hope local journalism finds a similar way forward so the next time a story like the Rittenhouse shooting happens, the local reporters will be there to gather the simple, straightforward facts. And while they’re at it they can keep covering the school board elections, and zoning board meetings, the court hearings, and even the ribbon cuttings. 

We’re all depending on them.