IN an unusual collaboration, ABC News and the Baltimore Police Department agreed to split the cost of conducting DNA tests for a story that will be seen tomorrow night on “20/20” (10 p.m. on Ch. 7).
Financial cooperation with a police department represents a risk for a TV news organization because the mere mention of money changing hands can result in charges of “checkbook journalism” – loosely defined as paying sources for interviews or information, a practice that is frowned upon by ethics watchdogs.
But investigative reporter Brian Ross says ABC would never have gained access to DNA samples held in police evidence rooms without the cooperation of police. And police departments are reluctant to perform DNA tests, except in some specific cases, because commercial labs can charge anywhere from $300 to $500 per test.
“The police departments said they simply didn’t have the money,” Ross said, adding that ABC thought long and hard about the ethics of sharing the cost with a police department.
In the end, the network decided to go ahead with the plan. “We thought that for the investment of $7,000, we weren’t going to corrupt ourselves or anybody else,” Ross said.
The goal of his investigation was to demonstrate what would happen if such testing were carried out as a matter of course. In the 50 tests paid for by ABC and the Baltimore Police Department, five came up with concrete results – four cases in which men were newly charged for sexual assault and murder, and one case where a man jailed for three months was disqualified as a suspect and released.