There is not a day that goes by that I don’t field a phone call from someone who believes they have been mistreated by the newspaper. It goes with the territory.

There are very few things I can be sure of these days – especially in this business – but one of them is that I am fairly confident I will manage to tick off any number of people just about every day.

Usually the callers have seen their names in the newspaper, very often in not the best circumstances. They usually ask, very often in fairly colorful language, why their name has been so denigrated. They insist the circumstances are not as portrayed, and that we have only offered one side of the story.

On that last part, I try to lend a sympathetic ear.

The truth is much of the news reported in the paper when it comes to police activity does in fact tend to be one-sided. We get that information from police, usually from the affidavit they file for a person’s arrest. While we often attempt to get the other side, very often the story appears without it. That’s why we try to follow the stories as they make their way through the courts, first with the preliminary hearing, then to the trial.

At the preliminary hearing, the state presents evidence in order to have the case held over for trial. Again it has a tendency to lean toward the police and prosecution version of events.

It sometimes is not until a case goes to trial that the accused gets to offer their defense to the charges, and gets the opportunity to face their accuser.

That’s the backbone of the American justice system, that a person is innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers.

I usually don’t place a lot of credence in these callers. We report the charges filed by police. If the story changes, we report on that as well.

Sometimes I’m reminded otherwise.

A couple of years ago the District Attorney’s Office filed charges against the principal of Chester High School, based on the allegations of a female student that she had sex with the young, dynamic principal.

It was front-page news. Eboni Wilson’s life twisted in the wind for months until the D.A. dropped all charges in the case.

That’s not the norm. Usually charges filed by the D.A. wind up in court, one way or another. Very often they result in a plea bargain. Some of those very same people and their supporters who challenged our version of events cut a deal.

Others wind up in front of a jury. In either case, we report the results, just as we reported the initial charges.

That’s why I wanted to pay very close attention last week to the trial of Dr. Jerry Lazaroff. He’s a psychologist who worked for the county Juvenile Court system.

The district attorney charged Lazaroff with inappropriately touching one of his young clients in his office. When the initial charges were filed, we splashed the case on our front page. After the story hit the newspaper and TV, several other young people came forward with similar tales. Additional charges were filed against the therapist. Lazaroff consistently denied any wrongdoing, saying everything he did was simply part of the treatment. We included those claims in the stories we wrote about Lazaroff.

Unlike several other news organizations, we covered Lazaroff’s trial every day last week, including Thursday, when he took the stand and told his side of the story, denying he had ever inapproriately touched any of the children. Lazaroff gave a sobering viewe of the ordeal he has been through, and what his life has been like since the charges were filed.

That’s one of those things that make newspaper editors sit up in bed at
3 a.m. in a cold sweat. I like to tell people that I can understand when they complain about what they have been through as they make their way through what appears to be a one-sided justice system. The truth is I don’t have any idea. In particular, I can’t even imagine what the life of Dr. Jerry Lazaroff has been like the past few months.

There was conflicting testimony offered even by several of the prosecution witnesses in the trial.

The jury went out Friday afternoon. They returned late Friday night with their verdict. They acquitted Lazaroff of all charges.

There were several big stories we were following on Friday. An Aldan man was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend’s young son. A horrific crash involving a group of Ridley High students was the talk of the town and left one student seriously injured. A raging fire swept through several row homes in Darby Borough, leaving a dozen people homeless.

I could have selected any of those stories to lead our front page. I chose none of them.

Instead, Page One was dominated by a picture of Dr. Jerry Lazaroff and two simple words: Not Guilty.

Lazaroff was front-page news when he was charged. He deserved similar treatment when he was cleared. I could have simply tucked the story inside the paper. It would have confirmed one of the most common complaints people make about newspapers, that we blast a person all over our front page when they are charged, but when the reverse happens, when we get it wrong or a person is acquitted, it gets stuck inside where nobody can see it.

The truth is I very often find myself going back to recall how we treated a story when it first broke. I try to offer equal treatment to the verdict as we did with the charges, especially when a person is cleared.

None of which I suppose will ease the pain Dr. Jerry Lazaroff likely still feels this morning.

Just as in the case of Chester High Principal Dr. Eboni Wilson, I am again reminded of a story involving then Labor Secretary Ray Donovan. In 1984, Donovan was President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of labor, right up until the time he was indicted by a federal grand jury. Donovan consistently proclaimed his innocence, and he was acquitted of the charges.

As he left the courtroom, Donovan offered this response to reporters.
“Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

I imagine Dr. Jerry Lazaroff feels exactly the same way.