By Chelsea Phua
Sacbee.com
Published 1/15/2008
Excerpt:
Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a recent
interview with The Bee that "person of interest" is not a term the
department uses. He said the Hatfill case was the only time he knows of
the department using it.
Usage of the term seemed to balloon after the Hatfield case.
A
search of a database of major U.S. newspapers in the Lexis-Nexis
research system showed that the term was rarely used until 2001. That
year, fewer than 400 articles carried the term. In 2002, the number had
more than doubled. By 2004, the term peppered thousands of stories.
Television
stations and newspapers are also grappling with the term's usage. Bob
Steele, The Poynter Institute's ethics and values scholar, advises
journalists to respectfully and appropriately pressure law enforcement
agencies to clarify what they mean.
"Absent some sort of definition, the term could carry implications beyond what it might be intended," Steele said.
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