In addition to reporting on charges against two members of the Duke Men’s lacrosse team following an allegation of gang rape at a party attended by many team members, The Raleigh News & Observer has searched courthouse records in Durham and adjacent Orange County looking for arrests and charges involving current members of the team as well as former team members as far back as 1999.
The paper’s featured what its found in many stories, including some front-pagers, one of which included a photo of players pictured on a “wanted poster.”
N&O’s executive editor for news Melanie Sill says the charges, all misdemeanors with alcohol frequently involved, constitute a very important story separate from the rape allegation investigation. Sill calls it a story of ” the lacrosse team's behavior in the context of larger student life issues at Duke.”
With all that reporting by The N&O, you might think the paper’s told you everything it knows about arrests and charges involving lacrosse players. But it hasn’t
In the Apr. 26 Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we find a front page story, "UNC men's lacrosse team sees own spell of legal fits.”
The DTH reports:
Eight members of the 43-man North Carolina men's lacrosse team have been arrested or cited in Chapel Hill during the past two-and-a-half years. Two - Billy Staines and Ben Mark - have had more than one incident with local law enforcement.The arrests and charges include “underage consumption of alcohol and possession of drug paraphernalia,” “damage to real property, one count of damage to personal property and one count of failure to report an accident,” “being intoxicated and disruptive after slapping the back of a police patrol car,” and “failing to appear [for] a court date.”
The records search, requested by The Daily Tar Heel, did not search former team members or jurisdictions outside of Chapel Hill.
A DTH editor told this blogger the paper had no plans to conduct searches as extensive as those conducted by The N&O.
There’s much more in the DTH story. I’ll report and comment further on the story soon.
UNC athletic director Dick Bardour told the DTH that the arrests and charges “raise your antenna." The DTH quoted Babbour at length and reported on an electronic letter he wrote to all members of the current UNC Men’s lacrosse team after he learned the Facebook.com personal sites of 24 team members contained photos of them posed with what appeared to be alcohol. The DTH reported 14 of the players are underage.
Why no reporting by The N&O on any of this? It’s certainly important. Many of those arrests are news stories in their own right to say nothing of the added news importance they have in the current circumstances.
The N&O is ideally situated to report on every aspect of this story. It has a news bureau in Chapel Hill. It has many connections to administrators and faculty at UNC. That should help with newsgathering. Many N&O reporters and editors have extensive background knowledge of UNC because they’re alums and parents of current and former UNC students.
So why is The N&O not reporting this story?
I’m going to email its public editor, Ted Vaden, and ask him.
I’m also going to contact journalists, bloggers and media critics to learn what they think about The N&O’s failure to report on the current UNC lacrosse players’ arrests and charges.
Stay tuned.
8 comments:
I made the suggestion that a comparison to UNC's lax program would be valuable context on M. Sill's blog weeks ago. So long ago that it's apparently scrolled off the bottom. It's not like she can even claim they didn't think of it.
I find M. Sill to be as bereft of integrity as I find Mike Nifong. There is really no point in engaging her in dialogue. She is what she is and honest people cannot communicate with her on any useful level.
Check out the N&O web site for their take on the newly released report about the Duke admin's response to the problem. Every other media outlet mentioning it so far (WRAL, WTVD) mentions the fact that the Durham PD considered the accuser unreliable. Not the N&O. It's entirely Duke's fault.
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/
http://www.wral.com/news/9178286/detail.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/437299.html
I want to know the rate of brushes with the law of these teams relative to the general student population.
Is it the same? Lots higher? What?
-AC
Folks,
Good comments all.
locomotive breath,
When a journalist friend put me on to the DTH story, I didn't recall your earlier suggestion but I recalled your asking Sill about The N&O's failure to report on Cheshire's statement. She gave you the "Gosh, we got beat on that line."
I hope you keep commenting here and at Sill's blog.
Also, please keep posting info here. You're often way ahead of me and I appreciate the info even if I don’t always say so.
straigtarrow,
Often I agree with you. Sometimes I say, "John, he's picked up on something you overlooked."
But on the "no point in engaging her in dialogue" I disagree.
One of the good things about the blogoshere is this: Unless the other blogger "air brushes," there's a "print record" of what's been said at each blog.
I love print records of what Sill and The N&O says and what I and others say.
People can look and judge for themselves.
AC,
You ask a very on point question.
Moving forward on this story, your question and others like it need to be asked.
I'm going to try to do my part to get those questions and their answers out to the public.
But I want to do it in a fair way, free of the "let's get 'em" reporting that's characterized N&O's hit pieces targeting current and past Duke lacrosse players.
Keep checking on me. Let me know if I fail to do that.
I'd be ashamed of myself if I ever reported on the UNC lacrosse players or anyone else the way The N&O’s "reported" the Duke lacrosse story.
Thank you all for commenting.
John
John, I have no problem with having a record of who said what. I just think our comments should be made to the issue or other commenters only. I believe Ms. Sill and her comments are worthy of no consideration whatsoever. I have no compunction about using her blog to air my views or to address the shameful performance of her paper or Nifong. I just think nothing should be written that invites a response from her. I never invite people to express themselves when I know they are pathologically incapable of the truth. Ms. Sill, in my opinion, is one such person.
That she will respond is expected. I do not however believe she should be asked for any response or asked to supply any answers. Let her lie on her own hook. She will, she cannot help herself.
And the honest people can let their contempt for her show by their refusal to grant her legitimacy.
Credit where credit's due. The Raleigh N&O is currently the only media outlet reporting Mike Nifong's witness intimidation program.
He's dug up a 2 1/2 year old incident and charged the taxi driver, Moezeldin Elmostafa, who is a key alibi witness for the defense of Reade Seligmann.
Lacrosse defense witness arrested
sounds like the cabbie has a big money lawsuit, I hope one of the attorneys for the defense takes or recommends a junk yard dog lawyer for it.
Post a Comment