Readers Note: This post is an email I've sent to a media contact person at University of Kentucky News regarding UK News' press release announcing a talk at UK tomorrow by Durham Herald Sun editor Bob Ashley.
You can view the press release here. KC Johnson has posted on it here.
I thank all of you who sent me the link to the press release.
John
___________________________________
To: Whitney Hale
Media Contact
University of Kentucky News
Dear Ms. Hale;
I blog as John in Carolina, live in Durham, have posted often on the Duke Hoax, and am a Durham Herald-Sun subscriber.
I have a number of concerns regarding The University of Kentucky’s press release announcing tomorrow’s presentation by Herald Sun editor Bob Ashley in the William T. Young Library Auditorium.
The press release refers to “a talk on the now infamous rape case.”
As North Carolina’s attorney general Roy Cooper stated after an extensive investigation, there never was a rape. From his statement:
We believe that these cases were the result of a tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations. Based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges.The attorney general’s entire statement is here.
I don’t understand why your press office didn’t at least use a neutral descriptor such as “Duke lacrosse case” or the more accurate one many people now use: “the frame-up attempt.”
Even the now disbarred former DA Mike Nifong and editor Ashley, for more than a year one of Nifong’s most important enablers, no longer, at least publicly, refer to “the rape case.”
The University’s press release states:
In March 2006, three Duke lacrosse players were charged with rape by district attorney Mike Nifong. Over the next 18 months, as tumultuous events in the case unfolded, the issues of race, gender, class, and the sometimes negative “town gown” relationship that existed in Durham, were exposed in ways that received national media attention.In fact, no Duke lacrosse player was charged with rape during March 2006.
Instead, during the later part of March and the first weeks of April, the entire team was subjected to public vilification including false public statements by Nifong, Durham Police, and the Herald Sun.
The Duke students were also subjected to physical threats by “community activists” who rallied under CASTRATE and GIVE THEM EQUAL MEASURE banners and distributed Vigilante posters.
The NC State Bar would later cite Nifong’s March and April public statements as ethics violations and part of the case for his disbarment.
Ashley, however, was very supportive of what Nifong said at the time and remained a supporter until Nifong was at the edge of disbarment.
Even then, his editorial criticisms of Nifong would embarrass most journalists. For example, Ashley said Nifong’s handling of the case had not been “flawless.”
Ashley’s Herald Sun has yet to condemn the “activists” who threatened the players and those, including some Duke faculty, who thanked the “activists.”
Regarding “the issues of race, gender, class, and the sometimes negative ‘town gown’ relationship:” they certainly permeated every aspect of the Duke Hoax, so it was right to mention them.
But the University's press release failed to mention presumption of innocence, due process, the sworn duty of police officers and their supervisors to follow the law and regulations, the sworn duty of a prosecutor to seek justice, and every citizen’s right to justice.
For all the manipulation of race, class, gender and “town gown” by those working the frame-up attempt and those of a PC/ leftist bent supporting them, in the end it was the Constitutional principles and practices America’s founders bequeathed us that were most important in preventing three innocent young men from being railroaded to prison.
That should have been mentioned in the press release.
Something else belonged in the press release: a mention that the charges weren’t merely dropped, but were dropped because as attorney general Cooper took care to say, the three young men were innocent.
Despite the attorney general’s finding of innocence, the three young men will always carry a burden from the slander and libels of Nifong and Durham Police, and the slimes of Ashley and others.
But each time the point is made that they were determined to be innocent following a lengthy investigation, it helps to mitigate their burden.
Can you put me in touch with someone to whom I can make that point, who might then make sure Ashley’s listeners are told tomorrow of the attorney general’s finding and the circumstances in which he made it?
Also, will there be a pod cast of Ashley’s presentation and/or an audio and/or video tape available of it?
Thank you for your attention to this email.
I’ll post your response at my blog.
Sincerely,
John in Carolina
Cc. Bob Ashley - bashley@heraldsun.com
5 comments:
Anonymous said...
And of course, the MSM slant was slavishly followed by Carl Levin, "Chapaquiddick" Kennedy and the rest of the lemmings of the Democrat party when General Petraeus reported to them. To hear them tell it, we've slready lost and staying there simply costs more lives needlessly.
TH
3:43 PM
Anonymous said...
John:
I am sure your questions to Whitney Hale will receive the standard brushoff. The elitists who put out these press releases have no clue.
They are creatures of the night.
Ken
Dallas
4:52 PM
Anonymous said...
Nevertheless, John, many of us admire your relentless nature and your persistence in setting the record straight. Thanks.
12:00 AM
mac said...
Good job, John!
6:06 AM
Anonymous said...
Upon reading the information sent by KC, I also fired off an e-mail to UK. Of all people to make a presentation about the case. Ashley, come on!!! Another travesty in the HOAX.
I pray that there is an alumni out there that can go to this 'talk' and record what Ashley says and more importantly, what he does not say.
Duke Laxom AND SO VERY PROUD OF IT!!!
8:17 AM
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