Sunday, April 23, 2006

Is McClatchy Duke lacrosse reporting “the best?”

The McClatchy Company’s CEO Gary Pruitt has been saying his company’s newspapers are generally the biggest and best in their market areas.

How about that?

Biggest?

Here in North Carolina, McClatchy’s Raleigh News & Observer has the highest circulation numbers of any daily in the central or eastern part of the state.

Score one for Pruitt.

But best? The N&O?

Well, you might believe that if you read only what N&O executive editor for news Melanie Sill tells readers in her posts at The Editor’s Blog.

But if you read readers’ comments responding to Sill’s post: WOW!

Try it yourself.

Are you interested in the Duke lacrosse story? Then take a look at “Getting it right.” Also, Sill’s “What’s a blog” post doesn’t mention Duke lacrosse, but wait until you see what happens once you get to the fourth comment which begins:

Ms . Sill, What your coverage of the Duke Lacrosse story has really done is to devastate all of us who truly strive for a color blind society.
I frequently post on the liberal trending left N&O’s “news reporting.” See, for example, this post.

The N&O’s public editor, Ted Vaden, has devoted two recent columns to The N&O’s Duke lacrosse coverage. Vaden goes easy on The N&O but still -- take a look here and here.

I plan to post tonight examples of The N&O’s prosecutorial Duke lacrosse reporting.

Mind you, I don’t know much about what happened that night at 610 N. Buchanan.

But each of us is entitled to due process and presumption of innocence.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was fun to read Vaden publicly criticizing the N&O for their biased and silly coverage.

But that has to be a career ending position, so I'm sure it didn't do a bit of good.

-AC

Anonymous said...

Now that Apple Chill has again ended in mayhem including several shootings will the N&O have a long discourse concerning town-gown relatiions in Chapel Hill. No, I don't think so either.

Anonymous said...

My comments in Ruth's Metro Blog, NewsObserver: "I suppose our "perspective" is always set in the framework of our past. Like it or not, your own rape and fear of disbelief has colored your reaction to this case. As for me, I did not march, and argue, write, debate, and pray for a color-blind REAL community of people of every color, to see newspapers like yours simply apply the SAME racist tactics....in reverse! We do not know yet if a rape took place, but you have lynched these boys and their families in the press. You have published their photos before there was any identification by the accuser: you have written a sympathetic portrayl of the accuser, protected her name and police record,...while you have published every negative piece of information you could glean on the LaCrosse team. You have shaped headlines, omitted to run stories favorable to the boys, used adjectives like "swaggering" (boys) vs. "soft-spoken" (accuser. ) It's BIAS, its RACIAL stereotyping of "rich, white priveleged " kids. It was wrong against people of color and it's wrong NOW. I want to believe your paper has no "agenda." How then can you justify your shockingly one-sided coverage? Had I the time, I could dissect the words you choose, the headlines you craft,...which some civil attorney just might do some day. It really is stunningly evident. Do you believe you are protecting the powerless from the powerful by assuming her story to be true before the evidence has even been brought to a court of law. How is that different from the generations of black men convicted of rape on just a white woman's word? Did you condone that? Why is it acceptable in reverse? White men rape: bleck men rape. Rich men rape: poor men rape. White girls lie: black girls lie. The color of our skin or the content of our pocketbook makes no one slam-dunk guilty or innocent. You have "prejudged" these boys guilty. (is that not the root word for "predjudice?") We do not yet know if a rape has taken place: but , as I said, led by your newspaper, a media lynching certainly has."

Anonymous said...

Notice that there are no shootings at Hog Days in Hillsboro.

Notice that there are always shootings in Chapel Hill's Apple Chill?

Conclusion: Liberals shouldnt' be allowed to have guns.

-AC