From The Editor: Johnson story calls for reporting in depth

People who don't like The Bee's Kevin Johnson coverage lately accuse us of political bias, racism, personal attack – guessing at everything, it seems, but the real motivation.

We're reporting.

We had to dig deeper after a former Sacramento High teacher went public with ugly accusations about Johnson, the former NBA star and community leader now running for mayor.

Along with other local media, we reported in March that Erik Jones had hung a banner on his house and aired claims that he said caused him to resign from Sac High last year: that a 17-year-old had told Jones and others that Johnson had groped her, and that Johnson and Sacramento High had engaged in a coverup.

These were serious charges, leveled not just at Johnson but also at school officials and the police department.

Sacramento police, as we have reported, concluded that the abuse allegation had no merit, in part because the girl took back her claim.

Unlike some of our competitors, we didn't think we'd be doing our job simply to report that Jones said this and Johnson said that.

Johnson isn't just a candidate for mayor. He's the founder and visionary for the St. HOPE nonprofit and its many programs; a successful native son of Sacramento with broad influence here.

He has been, at various times, a teacher, principal and chairman of the school board at Sacramento High.

His organization is working to win a charter for a new middle school and to take its Hood Corps teens program into other cities.

And, yes, Johnson is competing to unseat Mayor Heather Fargo as Sacramento's top elected official.

If Jones was making wild accusations, The Bee needed to tell readers. If his claims were true, we had to report that as well.

We dug in, primarily through the work of veteran reporters Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber.

The story that appeared April 25 drew on verified, on-the-record sources. It did not come from any political campaign.

Through meticulous reporting, Hardy and Korber showed readers the sequence of events and where the questions lay: That the school's representatives questioned the 17-year-old themselves after hearing the report rather than calling the state or police; that Johnson's personal lawyer, Kevin Hiestand, acted on behalf of both Johnson and St. HOPE.

State law says school officials must notify authorities immediately when they learn of abuse allegations involving students.

Jones eventually notified the state agency that investigates child abuse reports and called the district attorney's office, which contacted police.

To be able to report this story, Hardy and Korber carried out many, many interviews, document checks and other kinds of background work and verification. This level of effort, sometimes invisible to the reader, distinguishes good journalism from hearsay.

The day the article appeared, the Kevin Johnson for Mayor campaign released a statement (published at sacbee.com and summarized in the paper) attacking The Bee's coverage and lashing out at some of the findings.

What's hard to understand is why Johnson, Hiestand and St. HOPE rebuffed The Bee's interview requests until the eve of publication. At that point they released a one-paragraph statement and some detail from Hiestand, but nothing from Johnson.

They were given specific questions well ahead of time, part of our efforts to be accurate and complete.

I think the story was fair, measured and important. Readers have drawn many different conclusions, but they have the facts that we know.

And of critics who fault us for digging into this situation, let me ask this: What would you think of a newspaper that didn't?

About the writer:

• Reach The Bee's editor, Melanie Sill, at (916) 321-1002.