Some of you know that shortly before the late Ed Bradley’s 60 Minutes episode the Raleigh News & Observer, aware that Bradley would be interviewing the second dancer, Kim Roberts, admitted for the first time that in its infamous and discredited Mar. 25 “crying young mother brutally gang-raped” anonymous interview story, the women identified Roberts and made statements about her.
At the time the N&O decided to suppress the news that Precious had ID’ed Roberts and what she said.
The N&O made the admission at the Editors’ Blog. As far as I know the N&O’s never informed it’s print readers that it withheld part of the interview.
Ever since it made its admission, three N&O editors have been dissing off readers demanding to know more about the interview.
The editors have repeatedly said what the paper withheld wasn’t really important to the interview story.
The N&O has also refused demands from readers that it release a transcript of the interview.
Then on Christmas Eve, Asst. Mgr. Editor Linda Williams posted on a thread at the Editors’ Blog a jaw-dropping post in which she now makes a stunning claim:
If we had printed that utterance- an admitted speculation without the slightest foundation to suggest the possibility of truth-- it would have been a conscious act of libel.Can you believe that?
I’ll have more to say tonight.
Meanwhile, go take a look at the post and thread. Williams’ comment post appears at 17:17 pm on 12/24.
6 comments:
Interesting issue--it almost seems mandatory to mention that she made comments that, by their nature, were not credible thereby shedding doubt on the balance, in addition to, of course, the admission that such statements constitute libel against those folks, such as the Duke defendants, who are victimized.
So Williams stated that the false accuser offered a description of the OTHER dancer that night - ie 1 other person.....doesn't that in and of itself contradict her statements wherein she said there were multiple dancers?
I don't understand. Why does it matter that the accuser identified Kim to the newspaper? Kim has openly admitted to being the other dancer at the party and there isn't any doubt as to her identity.
It's not about accuser identifying Kim.
Apparently accuser made some statements about Kim. N&O did not publish those statements, and refuse to publish these statements to this day.
The comments would tend to show that the accuser believed that Kim had stolen money from her the night of the incident. It would make her look much less credible.
Oh one of the warrant claims is that they stole from the accused which would be odd given that the accuser apparently thought it was Kim that did...then just wanted money?
Also, if she said two things about people at the party and one is incredible and libelous and speculative, why is the other one appropriate for print. Also, even if the other one is printable, to put it in context you need to say that she said other stuff that was speculative. Clearly, omission of the other material boosted her credibility.
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