Each of us has a choice. How do we respond when we hear about an allegation in the press? How do we respond when a finding is reported by one side and then the person on the other side denies it? Who do we decide to believe, and when do we decide to believe it? When do we decide to believe a flawed media system and when do we decide to wait and trust a flawed justice system? When do we decide to believe a flawed media system and when do we decide to wait and trust a flawed internal system agreed to by the parties?
Because the media, the courts, and the system MLB has instituted are all flawed. None of them are perfect; they're all designed and operated by flawed human beings. There are going to be errors regardless: "guilty" are sometimes going to get off; "innocent" are sometimes going to be wrongly accused.
Me, I consider the media the least credible of the three. Far too high a percentage of journalism is shoddy, sensationalist, or both. So my approach has been, and will continue to be, assume innocence and wait until the court process (or, in this case, the internal process that MLB has agreed to) makes its way to conclusion before deciding to change my belief in the person's innocence.
I don't know Ryan Braun other than a little bit about what he does on the baseball field. What does it hurt me to wait to decide? Nothing. What does it hurt me to presume innocence in a stranger who I don't know and likely will never meet? Nothing.
Does this change because he "got off on a technicality"? No. Not at all. The process is there because the people setting up and applying the rules felt that it was too easy to wrongly convict the innocent without those rules. The process is there because they decided certain due process was required by the presumption of innocence.
Does this mean that the guilty might go free? Yes, of course. That's true of
every due process protection ever instituted anywhere by anybody.
And that's why the responsibility for "reputation" lies squarely with each of us.
We are the ones who must decide when we trust which system for our information.
This would be different if we were the parties involved or if we deeply knew the parties involved. But I would submit that *none* of us here know Braun or the fed ex man or the tester guy or any of the people in the chain of custody enough to know whether they are more or less trustable or more or less believable than the rest. And my guess is that almost none of us knows the ESPN reporters or other reporters either.
What we "know", or rather, what we believe, depends on which parts of the system we believe.
For me, my standard is this: a public figure isn't going to be "tainted" in my eyes just because an allegation gets made. And he or she isn't going to be "tainted" just because the media reports the allegation. He or she isn't going to be "tainted" just because some other stranger who I don't know either says so on TV or is quoted as saying so in
The New York Times or
USA Today.
The only part of someone's reputation I can change is the reputation they have with me. The only part of someone's reputation you can change is yours. Only I can change what I believe. Only you can change what you believe.
True innocence or guilt is known only by God and Ryan Braun. The rest of us can only choose how to believe.
I choose to believe "innocent."
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)