Duke lacrosse: Can you believe The Editor’s Blog?

The McClatchy news organization sponsors The Editor’s Blog, where Raleigh News & Observer exec editor for news Melanie Sill is supposed to interact with readers.

But not much of that happens there. It’s not unusual for Sill to get just one or two reader comments a week. There have even been weeks when there weren't any comments.

But lately?

Kaboom!

Whenever Sill allows readers to comment on the N&O’s Duke lacrosse coverage, which a journalist friend says “has violated every bedrock principle of ethical journalism,” the Editor’s Blog lights up.

Readers immediately demand to know why the N&O told them the accuser was “the victim,” granted the accuser a “free shot” anonymous interview, published the infamous “vigilante poster,” and the like.

Readers are angry because N&O “reporting” that my friend said “violated every bedrock principle of ethical journalism” went on for months; and is only now beginning to mute, long after sensible people realized the case the N&O and Nifong have pursued is a monumental injustice, which may include criminal acts.

Given all of that, how has Sill responded to readers?

She’s responded in various ways. A reader making a comment or asking a question that contains a factual error or evidences a misunderstanding gets a quick, corrective response. Readers asking fact-based, on point questions are often ignored.

Sill frequently responds with misleading and incomplete answers. For example, to readers who’ve complained about the N&O’s publication of the “vigilante poster” photo, she said it was only a “small” one on an inside page.

In fact the photo, which ran on Apr. 2 on pg. 20A, is two columns wide on a six column page. The pixilated portion of the photo is 6.25 inches long; adding caption and border space brings the length to 7.25 inches.(Unfortunately you can't access photos in the N&O's archives, which BTW require subscription. Hard copies can be purchased from the N&O.)

The N&O placed the “small” photo where it would get maximum reader attention: At the top of the page and in the 4th and 5th columns of a six column page.

So a two column wide, 7.25 inches long photo at the top center-right of the page is a "small" photo.

Do you see what I mean about misleading and incomplete answers?

I plan a detailed post on other aspects of the N&O’s “vigilante poster” photo publication, including providing readers important information the N&O failed to give them.

I also plan to ask why the N&O published the “vigilante poster” photo after warnings that doing do would only make it more likely the players would be targeted by unstable individuals and hate groups, something that’s unfortunately come to pass.

But for now, back to Sill and The Editor’s Blog.

I hope you visit there and read what Melanie Sill tells people. You’ll see a few readers accept what she says and seem satisfied. But others don’t and aren’t.

It’s those others who won’t be fobbed off who are now making The Editor’s Blog such an interesting place. (Full disclosure: Following repeated threats by Melanie over many months to ban me from The Editor’s Blog, I stopped commenting there.)

But if I were commenting now, I’d ask questions and say things like the following:

Melanie, when did the N&O first learn the Duke lacrosse players who lived at the house had cooperated with police; and that they’d voluntarily given statements, gone to Duke Hospital and submitted to “rape kit” testing, and offered to take lie detector tests?

And when did the N&O first report about that to readers?

Please don’t respond with “sometime early in the case” and “just as soon thereafter as possible.”

Intelligent readers want dates.

Moving along.

In the Mar. 24 report in which you broke the Duke lacrosse story, the N&O seven times said the accuser was “the victim” or referred to her with the possessive “victim’s”, not once preceding them with either “alleged” or “reported.” You very recently told readers the N&O regularly refers to an accuser as “the victim.”

Why? What makes an accuser a victim?

And, Melanie, you don’t regularly call an accuser in a rape case the victim, do you?

I checked your archives, searching all of this past January using the input word “rape.”

The N&O didn’t once call the accuser “the victim.” In most cases you called the accuser “the woman;” in a few cases “the accuser.”

You were making an exception in the Duke lacrosse case, weren't you?

The N&O doesn’t normally call the accuser in rape cases the victim any more than other American newspapers do because journalists know it isn’t fair to the accused.

So why, in the very first story the public would read about the Duke lacrosse case, did the N&O decide to cast the accuser as “the victim” and frame the Duke lacrosse players as her victimizers?

There’s a lot of speculation in the community about the answer to that question. What’s your answer?

Last question for now, Melanie: On your Duke lacrosse comments post thread on 6/14/06 at 9:52 you commented in part:

...we are sticking to N&O standards of verification and sourcing.

The N&O has standards of verification and sourcing?

Well, in that case tell us who the person(s) or group(s) are who were the source(s) of the infamous “vigilante poster” you published on Apr. 2? Your story doesn’t say.
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Readers’ note: I don’t hold copyrights to the questions above. Anyone can ask them of Sill and others at the N&O. I hope many do.

If you get a response, I’ll appreciate your sharing it here on this post’s comment thread, even if you think the response is just baloney.

Thank you.

John