7am News, Sports and Obits
Latest WGIL news
Click to play or
Right click and "Save Target As" to download
Click for Galesburg, Illinois Forecast
Home - Cancellations - Community Events - Contact Us - Mornings - News - Obituaries - Pictures - Programs - Special Events Audio - Sports - Weather
NU Jounalism Professor Out of Investigative Reporting Class
(IRN) -- Journalism professor David Protess has been teaching an investigative reporting class at Northwestern University for 12 years. He and his students have worked on dozens of cases which have yielded 12 exonerations of wrongfully convicted prisoners. But now, Northwestern says Protess won't be teaching the course during the spring quarter.

The university has been investigating Protess over claims of ethics violations since the Cook County state’s attorney subpoenaed student e-mails and grades in 2009 pertaining to a wrongful conviction case.

"We've developed compelling, in my view irrefutable evidence that a man named Anthony McKinney was wrongfully convicted and that he had been sentenced to life without parole," said Protess. "And the prosecutors tried to turn the tables by instead of acknowledging their mistake, by subpoenaing us and trying to point the finger at our reporting techniques instead of acknowledging their own mistakes."

Protess says the state's attorney is trying to discredit his work because they wanted to avoid a multimillion dollar lawsuit and a "horrible embarrassment" because they sought the death penalty for McKinney.

While Protess will still be the director of the Medill Innocence Project, he says he hopes to be able to teach again.

(Illinois Radio Network)
03 22 11 by Newsroom
News management powered by Xpression News

Click here for the WGIL News Archive

Click here for national news

The following provision applies to all visitors (which shall include persons and representatives of legal entities, whether such representatives are persons or digital engines of a kind that crawls, indexes, scrapes, copies, stores or transmits digital content). By accessing this Web site or digital service, you specifically acknowledge and agree that: (i) Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium; (ii) No Associated Press materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use; (iii) The Associated Press will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing; (iv) The Associated Press is an intended third party beneficiary of these terms and conditions and it may exercise all rights and remedies available to it; and (v) The Associated Press reserves the right to audit possible unauthorized commercial use of AP materials or any portion thereof at any time.