Notes On The News: What makes ‘ICE is in town’ and other rumors reportable?
- Mark Sabbatini
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
It was "common knowledge" ICE officers were in Juneau last month. The name of an officer being investigated for a violent arrest was on signs at a protest earlier this month. And a woman’s graphic social media accusations against a local tribal leader were recently made public by an opinionated political news site.
None were published by the Juneau Independent after receiving tips, hearing rumors or seeing social media posts. Even after getting enough sourcing to meet what some consider minimum requirements by industry/legal standards, publication of each item was delayed for some days after.
When items about each of those three incidents were published, some details — such as the specific accusations against the tribal leader and the name of the person making them — were withheld.
Those incidents offer useful examples of what makes news "reportable" by general media industry standards, although those standards are not absolute and vary to an extent among individual outlets. There are, of course, folks with extremely loose or rigid standards, but this column focuses on the Independent’s standards in that more general range.
Tip/rumor: "ICE is in town"
Multiple emails and other messages about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers being in Juneau were received by the Independent in mid-July. Similar assertions were posted on local social media sites, but with no hard evidence (i.e. a statement from the agency or authentic travel receipt) or implied evidence (i.e. photos of people with ICE jackets, which would not be official verification since there have been reports elsewhere of impersonators).
Among the messages to the Independent were that agents had checked into one or more hotels, and that employees in some restaurants and other businesses weren’t showing up for work out of fear. None of that could be verified during an initial check with city officials, and visits to some downtown hotels, bars and restaurants.
The first mention by the Independent of ICE’s alleged presence was sharing an article by KINY on July 21, where Mayor Beth Weldon commented about the rumors. While she told the radio station, "we haven’t been able to substantiate any of those rumors," her commenting on them as a prominent public official made the news "reportable" by any reasonable media industry standard.
A Voices column was published the same day, after a wording change to state the visit by ICE was alleged, since the original column described it as a factual occurrence.
That column and some details learned since provide further information that could make such a story reportable. Those include the cancellation of a picnic by Juneau’s refugee community and a restaurant offering a limited menu at the time the agents were reportedly in town. Had a collection of such items been obtained from on-the-record sources, a story could have been reported under a headline such as "Juneau residents and businesses limit activities due to rumors of ICE agents in town."
Signs of questionable JPD actions
A violent police arrest on July 30 was captured on a video widely shared on social media. The names of the Juneau police officer and the injured man were not reported in the initial stories by the Independent, at first because they weren’t known and then because they couldn’t be officially verified.
But the names became "common knowledge" to an extent due to people sharing them on social media and on signs during an Aug. 2 protest. Because family members of the injured man, Christopher Williams Jr., were there and spoke publicly about the incident, his name became reportable.
The Juneau Police Department had not released the officer’s name, so signs and comments referring to him by name were not included in the Independent’s coverage of the protest.
On Aug. 14, JPD identified the officer as Brandon LeBlanc, which is when most media organizations, including the Independent, first published his name.
Earlier attempts to confirm the officer’s name included checking court files of an arrest made of another person in the incident, which only references Officer Terry Allen making that arrest. There was no case in the court database under Williams’ name for the July 30 incident during the days immediately afterward (and still no case to date). The widely shared video footage was not of high enough quality to identify LeBlanc as the officer.
The Independent’s story identifying LeBlanc notes he was a defendant in a 2013 use-of-force lawsuit as an officer in Louisiana. The details are kept to the essentials since he was found not at fault by a jury.
Accusations against tribal leader made public
On July 30, a woman posted a "friends only" Facebook post alleging abusive actions against former romantic partner Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The post was shared publicly on July 5 by The Alaska Landmine, an opinionated political news site whose owner, Jeff Landfield, has been involved with previous public disputes with the tribe.
The Independent published its first story about the accusation on Aug. 8, after a tribal vice president sent a message to employees that a review of the social media post was being conducted. That message by a public official – much like the mayor’s comment about the ICE rumors in the example above — provided sufficient verification to make the matter reportable.
But the woman who published the original post declined to reply to messages from the Independent asking if it was OK to publish her accusations and Peterson similarly declined to comment. As such, the initial story reported details from the tribal leader’s post and an interview with a tribal spokesperson, but omitted more explicit information.
"The specific accusations against Peterson and the name of the woman making them are not being published by the Independent since no charges, public legal filings or other substantiation of the allegations are known," the Aug. 8 story notes.
What is and isn’t reportable information
For all stories, including follow-ups of those above, these are some of the rules that generally apply to sourcing:
• Anonymous calls/messages/emails: Not reportable and of limited use unless there are details about specific documents, direction toward people willing to provide on-the-record information using their names, or other officially confirmable sourcing.
• Social media posts: Reportable if from the official account of a public official, organization, etc. Generally reportable for public officials on non-official pages and people whose sites are public (but discretion is necessary under normal libel standards). Private social media posts require much more caution for reasons including verification of identity/claims and ethical considerations — and the nuances of that could be a column in itself.
• Lawsuits and other official complaints/documents: Reportable, but discretion is generally applicable since people can and do make false claims intended to damage other people or entities.
• Photos and videos: Not as automatically reportable as they used to be, due to technical advances that make deepfakes, AI and other fake photos appear genuine (this quiz tests readers’ ability to tell real vs. fake photos). Publishing genuine photos and videos is also subject to obtaining permission from the person who took them and other possible copyright restrictions.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
