"Innocent" sweatband story: Raleigh N&O's a day late and 8 paragraphs down

The McClatchy Company’s Raleigh News & Observer finally reported on the Duke Women’s lacrosse team decision to wear “Innocent” stamped on their sweatbands during this weekend’s final four NCAA championship games.

The N&O did so only after national news organizations including the AP and ABC News carried the story first reported by The N&O's much small competitor, the Durham Herald Sun.

It’s revealing to compare national news organizations' reporting with The N&O's.

ABC News, for example, headlined:

Duke Women's Lacrosse to Wear 'Innocent' Bands

ABC used the AP’s text. Here are the first two paragraphs:

In a show of solidarity with the Duke University men's lacrosse team, members of the school's women's team plan to wear sweatbands with the word "Innocent" written on them.

"We want to win a national championship for ourselves, but definitely also for the university and the men's team," junior Leigh Jester told the newspaper. "They don't really have a chance to play their season, which is a shame."

ABC's headline and the AP's text are typical of how other news organizations I located using a Google search reported the "Innocent" sweatband story on Wednesday, May 25.

Now look at what The N&O offered its readers a day later:

Duke women focus on lacrosse despite troubles of men’s team

The story doesn’t mention the “Innocent” sweatbands until the second sentence of the eighth paragraph. Talk about "buried in the deep."

Except for The N&O, all the “Innocent” sweatband news stories I’ve read quote Duke lacrosse player Leigh Jester as saying:

"We want to win a national championship for ourselves, but definitely also for the university and the men's team.”

The N&O offers readers this quote:

"Obviously, we want to win it for ourselves -- everyone wants a national championship -- but it's nice to be able to be the face of your school and to be recognized nationally for that.

Obviously, if we had to do it all over again, we'd rather not have the attention because of the situation."

The News & Observer advertises itself as "Fair and Accurate."

No kidding, they do.