Sunday, October 08, 2006

Duke lacrosse: N&O's Mar. 25 story implodes

To fair-minded people the N&O’s Mar. 25 story about the anonymous young mother brutally gang raped at a party hosted by Duke lacrosse players was always suspect.

They knew the story was about a woman’s disputed accusations. Yet the N&O ran unqualified headlines across page one just as it would for a straight news story it had verified:

Dancer gives details of ordeal
A woman hired to dance for the Duke lacrosse team describes a night of racial slurs, growing fear and, finally, sexual violence
Why, fair-minded poeple asked themselves, hadn’t the N&O put quotes around the headlines to indicate almost all their content was based on one person’s accusations almost all of which everyone else at the party was disputing?

The N&O went on and told readers:
It is The News & Observer's policy not to identify the victims of sex crimes.
A lot of people read that and took it at face value. Why weren’t those players in jail. Some started banging pots and demanding to know why Duke Univeristy still hadn’t expelled all the players.

But fair-minded people kept their heads. They asked what basis the N&O had for the statement. They wondered why the Durham Police officer quoted in the story hadn’t provided any physical descriptions of the three alleged rapists. Why hadn’t the N&O mentioned that? The alleged rapes had occurred almost two weeks ago. And here the alleged victim was granting an interview. Hadn’t she found time to give police descriptions of her attackers?

The story’s flaws and falsehoods have been exposed for months now but never as extensively and intensivly as in the past three days.

It all started when N&O Deputy Managing Editor Linda Williams posted at the N&O Editors’ Blog the N&O’s latest round of misleading explanations, excuses and delials that were quickly deconstructed by readers doing the kind a fact-finding and analysis reporters and editors are supposed to do. The N&O executive editor for news Melanie Sill stepped in on the comment thread to help Williiams out but that only seems to have made things worse for the N&O.

I’ll repeat something I said yesterday: Keep going to the Editors’ Blog and follow what’s happening there.

I just left the following comment at the Editors Blog ---
_______________________


Dear Melanie:

Your Mar. 25 story told readers:
"authorities vowed to crack the team's wall of solidarity.

“We're asking someone from the lacrosse team to step forward,” Durham police Cpl. David Addison said. “We will be relentless in finding out who committed this crime.”
If the truth had been told to your readers on Mar. 25 they would have learned the authorities had received a Niagara of cooperation from the lacrosse players.

The Niagara of cooperation began on Mar. 16 when the lacrosse captains who lived at the house voluntarily answered police questions first at the house and then at a police station, gave police signed statements, voluntarily went to Duke Hospital and submitted to rape kit testing, offered to take polygraph tests, helped police identify who was at the party and who wasn't, and then helped police locate the others who were at the party.

Police tell me they were letting the N&O know about the cooperation right after it happened. They say they continued to report to media on the players’ cooperation.

The police also reminded me that reporters always ask, “Is the suspect cooperating?” If the police answer yes, the next question is always: “What kind of cooperation?”

On what day , Melanie, did the N&O first learn about the captains' cooperation?

On what day and in what detail did the N&O first report that cooperation to readers?

Did anyone at the N&O tell Ruth Sheehan before she wrote her "Team's Silence is Sickening" column about the captains' extraordinary voluntary cooperation?

When you prepared your Mar. 25 story, you knew the court order the players had received was appealable. Anyone of the 46 could have exercised his right of appeal. None did. Every one of the players immediately complied with the order.

What a remarkable example of cooperation with the authorities.

So why did you decide to tell readers nothing about the captains' cooperation and all of the 46 players' waiver of their right of appeal?

Why did you instead only tell readers "authorities vowed to crack the team's wall of solidarity?"

You knew what you were reporting to readers about "the team's wall of solidarity" was false. But you've never explained why you did that. Why?

It’s sad to have to ask these questions. If the N&O Duke lacrosse coverage had been fair and reasonably accurate they wouldn’t be necessary.

Why did the N&O deliberately do such a malicious thing?

Last two questions: Who put you in touch with the hoaxer? Why did that person(s) do it?

Thank you.

John
www.johnincarolina.com
_______________________________________

Today Johnsville News and Liestoppers provide excellent takedowns of the N&O Mar. 25

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

John,
Important stuff is below (where I suggest an effective way to get a correction in the N&O). First off though I thought I wanted to mention Neff: Am I the only one who finds that while his articles poke 'holes' in Nifong's case (a collapsed dike seems more appropriate but hey) he manages to make his articles, well, much less effective than they could be. He does this by simply by structuring his articles in an odd way, having the most damning evidence against Nifong's hoax compacted into complex/difficult to decode wording while expanding on the 'fluff' bits. I'm a bit annoyed that the 'contrarian' within the N&O just doesn't to a point by point rebuttal of Nifong's hoax - the structure would actually be effective (ie make him have a point by point structure that is all about what went wrong, not 'distracting' quotes, etc that he uses)

I really don't think you're going to get Melanie to do anything using the editor's blog. I'm not being a troll and I am one of your regular posters. What Melanie needs is some 'ecouragement' by HER BOSSES to 'correct' the N&Os errors. Simply put all that we need is a short front page 'clarification'/'retraction'/'we messed up'. Perhaps that could be followed by the weak public editor writing a piece in the editorial section.

Now how would we get that to happen? I have a suspicion that there are a good number of Duke alumni that own McClatchy company stock either directly (very good) or indirectly (still good). Those shares have voting power even if the McClatchy family outvotes all the 'regular' shares with their seperate class of shares (which they use for 'strategic' purposes, ie, sales and purchases of assets).

PLUG: The N&O had revenues of$136,843,000 last year. The wonders of a public company (in contrast to H-S). Revenues were 200,000 up from the year before: a good sign (well if the alternative is the H-S...)


Assuming that Duke alumni directly or indirectly (read mutual funds, 401ks, etc) and there are CERTAINLY asset managers who vote proxies for such indirect holdings then things are looking up. FODU could start a little drive to put some pressure on McClatchy using their alumni contacts in order to get a correction.

This wouldn't be very difficult. If a few asset managers, corporate pension planners, ceos, and shareholders (or those who have substantial indirect holdings) were to start voicing their opinion to McClatchy's corporate contact people there'd be a correction - in fairly short order (not a century like the Wilmington 'take over' by the whites).

http://www.mcclatchy.com/
(company is profitable incidentally)
Contacts:
http://www.mcclatchy.com/100/story/380.html

Those who have a financial interest in the company should contact:
Financial/Investor Inquiries
Elaine Lintecum, Treasurer
916-321-1846
elintecum@mcclatchy.com

Those who want to voice their disapproval (which should also include investors, ie, cc the message you send to Elaine to the following contact)

General Inquiries
Peter Tira, Communications Director
916-321-1941
ptira@mcclatchy.com

Anonymous said...

'difficult to decode' means difficult to 'decode' for the average reader who scans articles and might not realize how much of an embarrasment Nifong (and the DPD actually) are. Yes, people scan most articles and I would imagine lacrosse is the same way. Neff needs a STRONG 'title' for his article and a structure conducive to those who 'scan' (and also structured to get the scanners to read while maintaining interest)