Seeking your thoughts on a recent story about a mental health crisis: Letter from the Editor


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We had one of those journalism conversations in our newsroom last week that are fodder for ethics discussions and for which I hope you’ll offer your thoughts.

The story is about the indictment of Pat O’Malley on charges of felonious assault of a police officer, assault of a police officer, obstructing official business and resisting arrest. O’Malley is a longtime public figure in Northeast Ohio, having been elected a Cleveland City Council member and the Cuyahoga County recorder.

He also is no stranger to our news platforms, with a history of physical altercations and arrests. His career as a public servant ended in 2008, when he pleaded guilty to an obscenity charge and was sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison. Earlier that year, we had laid out how he had filled dozens of positions in the recorder’s office through patronage.

He also is the brother of current Cuyahoga County prosecutor Michael O’Malley, who rightfully recused himself from the latest case.

The issue is that this case involves some sort of mental health issue. That’s why police were called to his home, a “mental health crisis incident.” Unfortunately, a lot of calls to police these days involve mental health breakdowns, which has resulted in much debate in recent years about the proper way to handle them.

People dealing with emotional trauma often lash out in ways that can be defined as criminal, but as a society, we are working harder to solve the underlying mental health issues rather than punish people for them. This is one of the reasons that Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish created a diversion center for mentally ill or drug-addicted arrestees. He wants to get them the help they need rather than have them sit in jail.

From a newsroom standpoint, we generally don’t report on people having mental health breakdowns unless their behavior is so outlandish as to demand attention. If someone brings downtown Cleveland to a standstill with threatening behavior, readers expect us to explain why downtown was brought to a standstill.

What happened at Pat O’Malley’s house did not rise to that threshold, but we did feel a duty to report the charges against him for other reasons.

One is that he is a longtime public figure in Northeast Ohio, someone who had repeatedly asked for and received your votes, and police have now charged him with a series of felonies. That meets longstanding definitions of news.

Another is transparency and accountability. He is the brother of the current prosecutor and a founder of the once-powerful Parma political machine. We think the public deserves to know whether he is receiving special treatment, which does not appear to be the case.

I did hear some feedback that we should not have reported on what was clearly a mental health issue, but I don’t agree. For me, this was clearly a news story we should have reported.

We are here to serve you, however. We are interested in hearing your perspective on whether this was news. Our industry is always evolving, and we seek to avoid standing on tradition for the sake of tradition. We try to ask ourselves constantly why we do the things we do. And we also ask you.

Please email me at [email protected] if you’d like to share your position.

Thanks for reading.


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