Good Question.

Saying "alleged" won't protect you legally from a challenge in court- that's the most important thing to keep in mind.

Typically, we'll say, "Jim Gee is charged with the murder of a store clerk on South Neil street." That's after someone has been indicted or an information has been filed by the state's attorney.

The broader question is, does "alleged" do anything to characterize the crime in the viewer's (or listener's) mind? I'd say no.

As with any crime-related story, it's important to cite your sources. "Prosecutors filed murder charges today against 31 year old Jim Gee of Champaign. Police say Gee shot and killed a man on South Neil Street Saturday night." Something like that.

You're not convicting me of a crime in that example, but of course, we must then commit ourselves to reporting my eventual conviction, acquittal, or dismissal of charges with equal zeal and clarity.

Jim Gee
WCIA-TV

Good points by Jim!

Also...no need to say "Prosecutors say Smith allegedly killed the woman." That's an overuse of the word "allegedly". Simply saying "Prosecutors say Smith killed the woman" will suffice.

ss

I usually say they are "accused" of. However, I have to admit I've been guilty of over-using the word allegedly. That's in part, because of a skeptical law enforcement community here that has accused us and the local paper of fostering the "guilty until proven innocent" mentality. So at times I've probably put allegedly, accused, etc. into stories like ketchup (or is it catsup?) just to appease them.

I once had the mother of a criminal call and complain we were calling her son a felon. Keep in mind, it was after he plead guilty in court to a charge of "possession of a firearm by a felon." But ma'am, I said, he admitted in court to being one. "Well, he's still not one."

That was one of those days I wanted to leave news and go work at Taco Bell.

But Scott Simon and I have talked about this before. I'm sure his thoughts will clear this whole thing up!

If you don't use alleged and instead reference the matter in a story to someone who told you (such as a PIO, etc), the best thing to do in protecting yourself against libel is to CALL THE DEFENDANT.

If you can't get ahold of them, or they don't call back, you are protected. You made the effort to call them for their side, therefore there is no claim by that person you had a pre-meditated cause to want to damage their repuutation.

Simply, someone did something, they were arrested and charged by someone, someone talked to you about what the person did, you called the subject, and a good story is presented without sounding so starched.

I've been threatened with libel twice in 27 years. Both times I called the defendant. They called back threatening to sue. I asked for their comment. Both said "no comment." I concluded the call with, "thanks for your time, see you in court."

Sez