Gannett, the largest newspaper company in the United States, stopped publishing arrest mugshots on the websites of former GateHouse papers on Tuesday, several months after the two companies merged.
Gannett had already pulled the booking mugs from its legacy sites years before the fall 2019 merger.
“The mugshot galleries disabled today were on legacy GateHouse sites to align with those standards,” Amalie Nash, vice president for local news at the USA TODAY Network, posted on Twitter late Tuesday.
The media company, in a statement posted on the former mugshot gallery pages of the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Florida Today, The Ledger in Lakeland and other sites across the state and nation Tuesday, said: “Mugshot galleries presented without context may feed into negative stereotypes and, in our editorial judgment, are of limited news value.”
“Instead, we will focus on the best ways to inform our readers by providing relevant information that will keep our communities safe and continuing to cover crime, as well as the public safety system,” Gannett’s statement said.
The company said it will continue to use booking blotter photos with articles in which they’re relevant.
The move comes as George Floyd’s killing by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25 has galvanized a movement demanding not only an end to systemic racism but sweeping changes to America’s criminal justice system.
In the 2000s, soon after newspaper websites across the country began publishing arrest mugshots, editors found that the galleries generated significant digital traffic.
Critics have long viewed the practice as unfair to those arrested because of the presumption of innocence. Many also say it disproportionately targets minorities.
