Ex-Herald Reporter Evan Benn Defends Students Accused of Bribing Sources
At Northwestern University, there's a remarkable student-led initiative called the Innocence Project. Since 1991, the J-school program has helped free 11 wrongfully convicted men with good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting on the flawed cases.
| via Illinois Dept. of Corrections |
| Anthony McKinney |
But in the course of reassessing McKinney's case, prosecutors issued sweeping subpoenas for the students' grades and off-the-record interviews.
Then, last week, they accused the students of paying Tony Drake -- the man taped absolving McKinney of guilt -- between $60 to $100 in exchange for his story.
Northwestern has refused to give prosecutors any of the students' reporting, and Innocence Project director David Protess told the Chicago Tribune the prosecutors' case is "so filled with factual errors that if my students had done this kind of reporting or investigating, I would have given them an F."
Now Benn is speaking out about the charges. He spent several years at the Herald before taking a buyout this summer and moving with his wife to St. Louis. He's now a feature writer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.





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