Raleigh N&O editor admits mistake. Just a teeny-weeny one

Do you think The McClatchy Company's Raleigh N&O exec editor for news, Melanie Sill, can't admit mistakes? Think again.

Sill's posted about:

A recent goof in which we referred twice in the same paragraph to utility "polls"

See that? The N&O said "polls" when it meant "poles." That's a mistake Sill won't stand for.

Sill's assured faithful N&O readers:

[W]e have stepped up training for N&O journalists to raise our skills and improve the quality of our work.

Do you believe it? Confusing "polls" with "poles" is what it took to get The N&O to "raise our skills and improve?"

No, you don't believe it, do you?

Neither do I.

I think what Sill is trying to do is look like she's "responsive" while she ignores readers outraged by The N&O's biased and inflamatory "reporting" on the Duke lacrosse case.

I left the comment below at Sill's post. You'll find my comment following one by Joan. Her comment is terrific and worth a "trip" to Melanie's blog. You can visit here.
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JinC response to Melanie Sill's "Journalism training" post

Melanie,

Joan’s right: "polls" instead of "poles" is a very minor mistake.

I hope you weren't too hard on The N&O staffers who made it, especially as The N&O regularly makes much bigger mistakes.

For example, The N&O published Feb. 15 a page one, headline story saying a group of state employees had been “caught cheating.”

But they hadn’t. They were decent, honest state career employees who were only doing their jobs.

No other newspaper in North Carolina made the same false claim about them The N&O made.

So The N&O was forced to issue a “correction.”

But The N&O’s never offered an apology to the employees who had to face their neighbors, and whose children were taunted at school.

Yes, N&O fans don’t think an apology is necessary.

But most decent people do.

How about an apology?

You might frame your answer in the context of N&O reporting that the Duke lacrosse team “swaggered for years” and “was out of control.”

And why not explain some other important things?

For example, The N&O refused to publish any of the Danish cartoons. You said The N&O's decision had nothing to do with the fact that publishing even one cartoon would make it more likely that hate groups would target N&O staffers and your newsroom.

You told readers not publishing the cartoons reflected The N&O’s “sensitivity.”

What’s more, you told readers The N&O could report on all the threats and riots in response to the cartoons in such a way that N&O readers would have no need to see the cartoons in order to understand what all the arson, riots, killings and injury were about.

But when "reporting" the Duke lacrosse case, The N&O did something very different.

You published the "vigilante poster" with face-photos of 40 Duke lacrosse players and "WANTED" stamped on it, even as people warned you that publishing the poster would do nothing but stir passions and make it more likely the lacrosse players would be targeted by unstable individuals and hate groups.

Of course, The N&O made sure not to mention the names of any of the “good citizens” who designed and printed the “vigilante posters.”

Melanie, your talk about “polls" and "poles” is suitable for a junior high school audience.

Mostly adults visit this blog; and most of them care more about The N&O’s frequent failures to provide fair and informative reporting than about “polls” and “poles.”

So tell readers why it was important for The N&O to publish 'the vigilante poster" but not publish the Danish cartoons

After doing that, you could explain why, in a 2000 word, front page Apr. 9 story concerning Duke's reputation, every Duke student or alum you quoted was very critical of the university.

There were then as now thousands of undergrads and alums in the area who would have spoken positively of Duke. But not one appeared in your story. Why not?

And why does The N&O continue to refuse to tell readers anything about the man who drove the accuser to the party that night? The N&O knows quite a bit about him.

I'll say more soon, by which time I hope you’ll have answered my questions as well as questions other readers have asked and which you’ve still not answered.

John