KTVZ offers apology

Call it a case of social media used badly, or call it a case of bad timing at an ATM — either way, it was just bad journalism on our part.

On Sunday, KTVZ news posted on-air and online photos of two men who Redmond police said in a Facebook post were “persons of interest” in an identity theft case.

Both men were at an ATM, and both were photographed.

One man was Luke Grandlund, but he was not a suspect — merely a person who used the ATM.

Police said they only wanted to speak to Grandlund for possible information about the other man photographed at the ATM.

At no time was Grandlund ever a suspect, but the headline to our story on KTVZ.COM read, “Facebook helps Redmond police ID suspects.”

We want to apologize for this, and to Luke Grandlund, a local landscape business owner.

We also gave Grandlund the opportunity Tuesday to speak on camera.

“I can speak out to the strength of social media, and how powerful it is,” Grandlund said. “And that news agencies such as yourself have to be responsible with that power, and realize that even though names do not need to be spelled out or written, the strength of social media — sometimes an image is enough to identify a person.”

We have changed our policy regarding the use of social media Websites in gathering and delivering the news.

We thank Luke Grandlund for the opportunity to correct this error.