To the Raleigh N&O - 10-31-06

Readers' Note: Melenie in the comment below is Melanie Sill, executive editior for news at The Raleigh News & Observer. John Drescher is the paper's managing editor. The comment was left on a thread at the Editors' Blog where Sill and Drescher blog.

John
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Dear Melanie,

You ask commenter “"El jefe:" -- "why not identify yourself?"

I wonder if El jefe and others who comment anonymously here are concerned you'll treat them the way you've treated the Duke lacrosse players.

You published on Apr. 2 the "vigilante poster" knowing it would endanger the players. They'd done you no harm and made no criticisms of The N&O.

As you know, The N&O’s "vigilante poster" contains photos of only 43 of the 46 white lacrosse players because Duke pulled the players’ photos when it realized some people would use the photos in ways that would endanger the players, including publishing and distributing their photos throughout the community.

The person(s) who put together The N&O's "vigilante poster" was only able to get 43 photos before all 46 players' photos were removed.

You didn’t tell readers any of that.

Not only that, Melanie, you published your "vigilante poster" anonymously. You still refuse to disclose the source(s).

How can you honestly say to “El jefe,” -- “why not identify yourself?”

Why don’t you identify who produced the “vigilante poster?" Durham Police Maj. Lee Russ has said DPD would like to know who produced it. So would many others including the players families and attorneys.

The N&O published the poster just a few weeks after you refused to publish the Danish cartoons. Journalists feared publishing the cartoons would endanger themselves and their colleagues.

But the "vigilante poster?" You even made sure to run it on a Sunday, your highest circulation day.

Melanie, you and John Drescher understand why people who criticize The N&O may not want to ID themselves.

What’s more, you and John don’t really have a problem with anonymity. You use it often to produce stories and earn your incomes.

The N&O published the accuser's false accusations anonymously and without checking most of what she said. You did not even care enough to carefully substantiate the grave accusations of gang-rape, strangulation and beating she made against the players.

Did you have any problems and speak out when CBS 60 Minutes first used forged documents from an anonymous source to impugn President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service?

Dan Rather looked into the camera and told millions of viewers CBS’s anonymous “documents” source was "unimpeachable."

Thanks to bloggers pushing and a few MSM journalists following up, Rather and CBS were forced to admit about 10 days later that their "unimpeachable" source was long-time Bush-hater and Democratic Party activist Bill Burkett. As a condition of all his “documents,” Burkett demanded the network first arrange for him top speak with a top strategist in then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s campaign, something the network did but didn’t disclose to viewers.

Anonymity can be used to cloak falsehoods. But well-known journalists and news organizations engage in falsehoods, too. Quite a few of them actually.

Viewers and readers must always be careful and fact check.

As to the trustworthiness of bloggers and journalists, I pay a lot of attention to the promptness and completeness with which they acknowledge and correct errors.

Are you and John planning to tell readers why it’s taken seven months for The N&O to make even a grudging, incomplete admission that using “victim” and “victim’s” in the Mar. 24 and 25 stories was wrong?

What would you tell readers about an anonymous blogger who stonewalled for seven months on such an important matter, and them said only something like: “Well, I quess I did a little too much of that?”

John
www.johnincarolina.com