Craig Watkins Won’t Always Talk to the Media. But He’ll Talk About the Media.

Speaking of Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins …

This week, SMU hosted a Media and Human Rights Symposium that featured among its guests Watkins, a few profs and even a noted Oscar-winning filmmaker. Watkins delivered his presentation on Wednesday, and during his speech he spoke at great length about his volatile relationship with the media — which he takes to task for, among other things, selling “sensationalism” and having “dropped the ball” when it comes to covering the criminal justice system. It also sounds, at one point, as though he blames the media for the wrongful prosecutions his office has spent the better part of three years uncovering.

Which isn’t to say Watkins doesn’t acknowledge all the positive press he’s gotten for his DNA exonerations. Matter of fact, he says, all those glowing stories give him more credibility when he steps in front of a jury and asks for the death penalty: “They’re more apt to follow what we ask them to do because they’ve seen the path that we’ve gone down,” he says, “and at the end of the day they feel like no matter what happens we’re going to do the right thing.”

In all, a fascinating, unedited look at how Watkins really feels about the Fourth Estate. A Friend of Unfair Park provided us with nine minutes’ worth of his talk. It follows, along with a transcript for those who don’t want to sit through the whole thing.

Craig Watkins at SMU on April 7, 2010

When I first came to office, someone told me you don’t want to pick a fight
with the media because they own the ink in the paper and I still haven’t
learned that lesson yet, not to fight with the media.

Initially when I came into office I was very disappointed in the media. I
thought that they would come to the table as a blank slate and they would be
there to just to gather knowledge about a certain issue and print the facts.

What I unfortunately realized is that those folks that were writing those
stories were human beings just like me, and so they brought their own
experiences to the table, and their own point of views to the table, and
sometimes you would get a story that would just be about the facts and not
about their own personal views, but that’s seldom.

And so, something that I had to realize, after some time, was that I am
dealing with human beings. And as such, as a human being you do bring to
that issue how you may feel about it, when your responsibility as a reporter
is just to relay the facts.

I think a good example of that happens to be two cable news stations. You
can look at Fox and you can look at MSNBC. And both of those cable networks
would give you the impression that they are reporting the news, the facts.
But obviously it’s not. It’s slanted one way or the other.

And what we have today are basically liberal or conservative news outlets when
all we should have is a news outlet that’s concerned with reporting the
facts as opposed to giving their opinion. Yeah, there should be an editorial
page. But largely the newspaper or media outlet such as MSNBC or Fox, their
responsibility should be there to report the facts so you all can made can
make an informed decision on what direction you should go or what your
opinion should be.

Now, it’s been good to me, to a certain extent, the media, and I think maybe
for the wrong reasons. I, fortunately, for me, got to be the D.A. and the
first African-American, and so I got a lot of attention as a result of that,
and even more attention when we started to look at cases where individuals
were wrongfully convicted from a district attorney’s perspective. That was
odd and the media grabbed hold of that and they thought ‘Wow we can sell a
lot of newspapers with this story.’ And you have to realize that also. It’s a
business. They’re in the business of selling newspapers, and so whatever is
sensational, sensationalism to them, they want to print that, and so we
brought all that to the table. An African-American D.A. and he’s exonerating
people in Texas of all places. So, I always joke with reporters when they call
me, when are they going to give me some stock in their paper, because I’m
really helping them sell newspapers.

I get a call from the media at least twice a day about something. And
there’s one reporter, and I don’t see him here…I always mess with him
because every time he calls me, he says, “Well I’m calling to take you to task
Craig on this issue or that issue.” He’s never called to say you were right
on this one, Craig, and I was wrong on that one.

And after that I realize again, that they have these egos, and when they’re
proven wrong they’ll never admit it. And they’re always quick to call into
question something I may have done that was wrong. But I easily admit that,
but at some point I hope during the process of my time in public office that
we will develop a relationship where we can go back and forth equally and
they will be in a position to admit that they made a mistake.

As relates to the death penalty and the media, it’s important on how the
media deals with that very issue.

I think, you know, over time that they may have dropped the ball, not just
as it relates to the death penalty, but the criminal justice system as a
whole. You know, in Dallas, for example, we have had a reputation, a dubious
reputation, of dispensing justice that some would say was somewhat unfair,
and caused a lot of individuals, and it’s been proven, we’ve had more
exonerations here than in any other place — some states. We have more
exonerations within Dallas than in some states. And it’s true.

The fact that the media allowed this to happen, they are in the
courthouse everyday. They see how these things work. They know that there
are issues, but sometimes those issues never make it to the public. And you
would think with how savvy the media is that it would have gotten to the
public before this new African-American D.A. in 2006, of all things. In 2006,
we were just getting to the point where we can legitimately address these
issues of an effective criminal justice system.

And, you know, to the media’s credit they’ve tried, but I think they should
have tried a little bit harder in making sure that they called, like they do
me, those D.As to task on some of the policies and procedures that they had
implemented, over the years.

And, you would see the media it sometimes became a popularity contest,
especially during elections, on who they would endorse and that carries a lot
of weight. When the newspaper says yea, you should vote for this certain
person, people actually take that into the election booth and make a
decision based upon that. But what they’re not telling you is that the
person that you’re voting for may have failed you, overall, and those D.A.s
that have been elected in Dallas County obviously had failed the citizens of
Dallas County because the whole issue of our criminal justice system has
been called into question.

Credibility. Uh, and I see this first hand when I’m dealing with juries. And
one in particular, a death penalty case, and it’s a very complex process
picking death penalty juries. We put an individual on there that really
couldn’t say whether or not he was for capital punishment, and everyone
thought, the defense attorneys were laughing: ‘I can’t believe you guys let that
guy get on the jury,’ ‘He’s going to hang it up,’ and ‘You’re not going to get
the desired verdict.’ And, they were wrong. And I tend to believe that the
reason they were wrong is because over time what we’ve done in looking at
these cases where individuals were wrongfully convicted and legitimately
looking at them and doing the right thing, we’ve built credibility with
those individuals who come and sit on juries.

And even though they may not, you know, can say definitely that they believe
in capital punishment, they’re more apt to follow what we ask them to do
because they’ve seen the path that we’ve gone down and at the end of the day
they feel like no matter what happens we’re going to do the right thing. And
in our estimation that, that’s what it’s all about.

And especially dealing with the media, they’ve done a very good job of
getting the story out as relates to exonerations and the problems and how
they resulted. They could do a better job in making sure that the
conversation continues. Now, just like on death penalty cases, when an
execution happens it’s kind of a footnote in the newspaper when it should be
a front page story. The same thing we’re starting to see with exonerations.
It’s somewhat of a footnote now. It’s commonplace, as opposed to being on
the front page. And this process, this evolution of the criminal justice
system won’t happen unless the media pays attention to it and they take it
very seriously and use all of their resources to make sure that they hold
those individuals who hold positions like me and call them to task when
they’re failing the system.

So that’s my little input on how the media affects what we do on a daily basis. And I’d
love to answer any questions when we get to that point.