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With Glowing Profile of Jeffrey Conroy, New York Times Missed Important Details

Posted May 28, 2010 by Ted Hesson
Categories: Media Watch

In late April, shortly after the verdict was issued in the trial of Jeffrey Conroy, who was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the stabbing death of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero, The New York Times’ Manny Fernandez wrote an article that featured a jailhouse interview with Conroy.

The interview gave Conroy the opportunity to tell his side of the story; to explain why he wasn’t a monster, contrary to what the public might think after a conviction for manslaughter as a hate crime. Understandably, Conroy didn’t want to be remembered solely for his involvement in “beaner hopping”—slang that the teen’s friends used for when they would troll Suffolk County for Latinos to attack.

However, the jailhouse interview wasn’t the first time that the public had heard Conroy speak since the killing. Unlike many murder trials, Conroy had taken the stand in his own defense.

He had a chance to tell his story, and a jury of his peers didn’t buy it.

That’s why I was surprised when I came across the aforementioned New York Times article entitled “From Jail, a Hate-Crime Killer Seeming Not So Hateful” on April 29,* a jailhouse interview with Conroy that I interpreted as sympathetic to the convicted killer.

In addition to the quotes from Conroy, the article featured the voices of family friends who spoke highly of the 19-year-old. To them, Jeff Conroy was a talented athlete, a good friend, someone who would mow your lawn for you or do a good deed for a stranger—even if the stranger was Hispanic.

What the article didn’t mention was that Conroy had 24 school disciplinary infractions from 2006-2008, and that he had been arrested on May 10, 2008, for punching a young man in the face and head.

It didn’t mention that in July 2008, Conroy was a person of interest—along with Jose Pacheco, another Lucero attacker—in an investigation into slashed tires at a Hyundai dealership in Medford.

It didn’t mention that Conroy had been in trouble for using foul language and being disorderly with security guards at a local football game. Or that he’d been in trouble for using foul language directed at his teachers, as well.

Not that any of this makes him guilty of manslaughter. But when the Times article ran, Conroy had already been convicted of manslaughter, with virtually no one (except Conroy) proclaiming his innocence.

Granted, Conroy’s school and legal troubles weren’t public knowledge. I wasn’t aware of these missteps until Assistant District Attorney Megan O’Donnell read them from his probation report at Wednesday’s sentencing.

But then again, I wasn’t writing a post-verdict profile about Conroy for one of the best-respected, most-read newspapers in the world.

I don’t mean to cast aspersions on The New York Times coverage of the case, or on Manny Fernandez’s overall trial reporting, which was thorough and at times thought-provoking. But in this instance, the newspaper ran an unbalanced story that not only humanized a convicted hate killer, it gave readers the impression that Conroy wasn’t such a bad guy, after all.

In addition, I’m curious how many humanizing profiles the paper of record typically publishes featuring convicted black and Latino killers.

I emailed Manny for a response and was directed to Robert H. Christie, the senior vice president of corporate communications at the Times:

“We stand by our reporting and for the last two years, the Times has covered all aspects of this story,” Christie said.

To my knowledge, the newspaper has not written about the incidents in Conroy’s past that O’Donnell cited from the probation report.

Of course, this is just one story out of dozens that the newspaper published over the course of the Marcelo Lucero case. But for some Times readers, this might have been one of a handful of articles that they read about the trial. I couldn’t help but imagine what sort of impression those readers might get about the case based on the information in the “seeming not so hateful” story.

In the end, I was left wondering, “Why run this story at all?”

*According to my Google Alerts from that day, the title of story appeared as “From Jail, a Hate-Crime Killer Seeming Not So Hateful” (11:39am) and then as “In Jail, Hate Crime Killer Says He Isn’t So Hateful” (10:27pm). I quoted the headline as “Doesn’t Seem So Hateful” in my original post about the article, and the news aggregation site Topix quotes the same headline.

It’s possible that I copied it incorrectly, but since both Topix and Google Alerts are showing that different headlines surfaced online that day, I think it’s reasonable to assume the headline changed as the day progressed.

A spokesperson for The New York Times said that the headline did not change.

Tags : hate crimes, marcelo lucero, new york times, suffolk

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