Over the past week, every other major newspaper in Florida dropped the insanely racist practice of publishing mugshots, and now the Tampa Bay Times has finally joined their ranks.
Today, “Florida’s Best Newspaper” announced the move, saying the online tool used to scrape local jail sites, which still publish the photos, has “little journalistic purpose.”
“The galleries lack context and further negative stereotypes,” said executive editor of the Times Mark Katches in a statement. “We think the data is an important resource that our newsroom will continue to analyze and watch carefully, but the galleries alone serve little journalistic purpose.”
Last week, the Orlando Sentinel and the Sun Sentinel, which are both owned by Tribune Publishing, announced they were dropping their mugshot galleries, shortly after the country's largest newspaper company, Gannett, announced a similar move involving all of their publications, including Florida papers. It’s also worth noting the Miami Herald hasn’t had a mugshot gallery in 12 years.
On June 10, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay ran an article calling for the Tampa Bay Times to remove the mugshot gallery, pointing out that the practice and unethical and disproportionately criminalize Black people, among other things.CL reached out to Tampa Bay Times Executive Editor Mark Katches for comment on that story and he never got back to us.
Since its creation, the Tampa Bay Times mugshot gallery has been criticized by both active staffers and former employees. While current employees have yet to go on the record about the issue, former employees have been extremely vocal.
“It's also an example of how media builds systems to amplify the position of police and authorities at the expense of the individual,“ said former Times employee Eric Deggansto CL, who is now NPR’s TV Critic and an MSNBC/NBC’s Media Analyst. “It broadcasts the police and prosecutor's allegations against an arrested person with a level of prominence that can affect the public.”
But the most notable criticism came from the mugshot gallery's creator. In a recent tweet, former staff member and current University of Nebraska journalism professor Matt Waite, who literally created the tool for the Tampa Bay Times, said “it’s time to turn it off. It’s been time.”
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