Monday, January 09, 2006

N&O public editor replies. I ask again.

Below are full taxt copies of three emails. The first I sent yesterday, Jan. 8, to Raleigh News & Observer public editor Ted Vaden. I questioned a statement he made to N&O readers in his column yesterday.

The second is Vaden's reply.

The third is another email I sent Vaden after receiving his reply.

I'll let you know what I hear back.
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FIRST EMAIL TO VADEN:

Dear Ted,

In today's column you say The N&O's Jan. 4 story on the miners "did note that the mine owners had not confirmed the rescue." Melanie has made the same claim at her blog.

But my Jan. 4 N&O doesn't contain any mention that "the mine owners had not confirmed the rescue."

What explains that?

Here's a link to a post today concerning your column:
http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-cant-fault-no-public-editor-says.html

I'll post again on your column tomorrow.

Sincerely,

John
www.Johnincarolina.com
____________________
REPLY FROM VADEN:

From paragraph six of the Jan. 4 story: "The mine's owner, International Coal Group Inc., did not immediately confirm that the 12 other men were alive."

__________________________________________________
SECOND EMAIL TO VADEN:

Dear Ted:

After receiving your email I read The N&O's Jan. 4 front page miners story for what must be the fifth or sixth time.

Contrary to what you and Melanie are saying, nowhere in the story I read is there any mention that the "mine's owner, International Coal Group Inc., did not immediately confirm that the 12 other men were alive."

I've asked others to read the story. They, too, found nothing about mine owners
not immediately confirming the 12 men were alive.

The story ran five days ago. Any question about its contents, especially one of this importance, should have been resolved by now.

I want to do what I can to make that happen.

Would it help if I faxed you a copy of the part of your front page story that contains all the text there of the miners story as well as faxes of all text of the inside page part of the story?

If it's necessary, I'll drive to The N&O's office in Chapel Hill so one of your staffers can look at my Jan. 4 N&O. But I can't get to Chapel Hill much before 6:30 PM.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

John
www.johnincarolina.com

2 comments:

prying1 said...

I read in the online version of the article - http://www.newsobserver.com/576/story/385995.html -
in paragraph 10 (not 6) the line, "The story did note that the mine owners had not confirmed the rescue."

I gather the original article in the hardcopy paper did not have this line and it was added later. If so this was taught in 'CYA Journalism 101' and only shows how well our intrepid Ted Vaden, Staff Writer paid attention in class...

He could do with a remedial math class however.

Anonymous said...

The N&O I received on 4 Jan does say in para 6 that the mine owners did not “immediately” confirm that 12 miners survived. I live in Franklin County, about 20 mi north of Raleigh. I tried to include a jpeg of the article but your comments won't accept it.