KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When a crime happens in our communities, it is common for news outlets to list the description of the suspect. Those descriptions are generally provided by law enforcement, but are often times vague.
In an effort to avoid unconscious bias in our storytelling, 41 Action News is formally announcing guidelines surrounding the use of suspect descriptions in our reporting.
As stated in our guidance, “we are committed to eliminating the opportunity for unconscious bias by only using descriptions when there is something that can be specifically identifiable.”
This means we will avoid announcing suspect descriptions if they are so generic that they describe a vast number of people and therefore, do not assist viewers in identifying potential suspects and could potentially put innocent people at risk.
In the event that law enforcement agencies provide us with vague descriptions, we believe it is our responsibility to ask for additional details. If law enforcement officials cannot provide additional details, we will not report the description.
This does not mean we will eliminate all suspect descriptions in our reporting. In fact, we have decided to include suspect descriptions when police are searching for someone wanted for a serious or violent crime.
Basic descriptors, like age, height, weight, hair color, sex and race must also be accompanied by unique factors about the suspect. For example, if the suspect has a visible birth mark, scar or tattoo, we will provide our viewers with that information. Without unique factors, we believe providing the suspect description could cause unnecessary harm to people in our community.
While these guidelines have been discussed among our staff members for years, this is our first time putting them in a formal policy.
This is not the first policy we have announced in an effort to keep our community safe and be more transparent with our viewers. You can read our policy for using mugshots here.
