This is a continuation of today’s first “talking post” which I understand some of you missed because you spent most of the day with DA Mike Nifong helping him select his defense attorneys.
You’re just in time now to get my New Year’s wishes for all Regulars and Readers (sans trolls):
Every blessing to each of you in 2007.
Here and at other blogs, boards, etc you’ve spoken up and asked for reliable information from MSM news organizations.
You’ve examined what MSM offered and sorted “the chaff from the wheat.”
Often, most of what we’ve gotten from MSM has been “the chaff.”
But that hasn’t discouraged you.
You’ve pressed for information and called "chaff" what it is.
And together with others, you’ve made a difference.
If you doubt that, go take a look at the posts and comment threads at the N&O’s Editors’ Blog.
The N&O editors thought the EB would be the place where they could “explain journalism to our readers;” and you would just go along with what the “news professionals” fed us.
Not so!
The Editors’ Blog has become a place where you and others are demanding the N&O disclose the important information it withheld from readers and other news organizations when it ran its now infamous and discredited Mar. 25 anonymous interview story.
You are doing that and so much more at the EB. Melanie Sill and the other editors barely finish their incomplete, misleading and, in some cases, outright false statement before one of you or someone like you is posting a response. And others of you follow.
On just about every important story the N&O editors have tried to “sell readers,” you and others have put the editors in “checkmate.”
You've done all of that and I haven’t even begun to talk about the work many of you do over at Liestoppers, Free Republic, etc. as well as the support you give bloggers and pundits such as KC Johnson, Bill Anderson, Betsy Newmark, La Shawn Barber, Lori Byrd, Jason Trumpbour and many others.
Mixed in with the work are the laughs we have together.
I could go on but you know what I'm saying.
BAD NEWS ALERT FOR NIFONG, CERTAIN DURHAM POLICE OFFICERS, THE N&O, PRESIDENT BRODHEAD, THE "88," AND OTHER ENABLERS: We'll be back - stronger and more resolved - in 2007.
Folks, I’m looking forward to working with you.
I’ll make one prediction about something we’ll help make happen in ’07.
We’ll learn with reasonable certainty just what it was the false accuser said to the N&O that was so important and libelous that the N&O suppressed it; and to this day has failed to tell its trusting print readers what it did.
Every blessing,
John
6 comments:
Happy New Year, John. Keep the North Carolina newspapers honest. It's a challenge.
This excellent bit of analysis by Bob Wilson, former News & Observer reporter and Herald-Sun editorial page editor, appeared in an answer to questions by a reader on this blog. Many may have missed it:
Bob Wilson said...
Anon 12:55, I read the Precious interview story again a few minutes ago. In my opinion, that dreadful little text is destined to become a textbook example of how not to write a story.
The story is remarkably biased toward Precious and against the lacrosse players. The reporters made no attempt to go beyond the spin they were getting from Precious and others.
The reporters empathized with Precious because they work in, and are products of, an ideological environment that elevates real or alleged victimization, particularly among minorities, to the status of sainthood.
In the modern media, most reporters have little lasting contact with victims of crime; in fact, most reporters have little contact with common folks, period. Thus, the N&O is not unlike The New York Times in its newsroom culture; both papers have isolated themselves to a remarkable extent from the real world. What has grown up in the newsroom culture since the 1960s is a left-leaning group-think, nurtured by a virulent feminism and the usual suspects of race and class.
The N&O's March 25 tear-jerker was the spawn of this "new journalism," which at its worst embraces subjectivity -- emotion -- over even the appearance of objectivity -- facts.
Should we be surprised that the Duke lacrosse players got such a raw deal early on from the N&O? No. The newsroom culture was programmed to behave as it did in those first few weeks. The same is true of Duke's notorious Gang of 88.
Fortunately, the N&O still had a couple of reporters, Joe Neff and Ben Niolet, who hewed to the old standards. Sometimes it seemed there were two N&Os, Melanie Sill's and another one that published Neff and Niolet's work. Brave souls, those two. They swam against a strong tide.
Ms. Sheehan,
You wrote in the articles titled "It's Time to Drop The Charges":
“It is not my job to wait for cases to be resolved and then walk through the aftermath and shoot the dead.”
This sentence was in the context of not apologizing for the mischaracterizations, speculations and character assassinations you have previously written. Perhaps if you and the 88 members of the Duke faculty had a clearer idea of what you job is, instead of hiding behind what it is not, you might not have so grievously damaged these boys, their families, the community of Durham, the reputation of the N&O and Duke University.
I appreciate your calling for the charges to be dropped. It is now painfully obvious that there was a false accusation, and an out of control prosecutor. The end point may be accountability for the accuser, and disbarment for the prosecutor. The President of Duke may lose his job. Eighty Eight professors who attacked their own students without fact or information will be marked for their entire career as “false accusers”. Calling for the charges to be dropped at this late date is very much like “walking through the aftermath and shooting the dead.”
When you write publicly and are wrong, you don’t get to hide behind what you think your job is not. Rather, you take responsibility, apologize unequivocally and try to remedy the damage you have created. It’s a matter of simple decency and accountability. It’s also about being a professional journalist and not just a high school hit sheet.
Ms. Sheehan, I wish you would reflect on what you have written and fully apologize to the three falsely accused men for your role in the travesty of justice that is the Durham Faux Rape Case.
I am trying to understand why Niolet is mentioned with Neff as swimming against a tide.
This is an example of Niolet's work.
http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/493316.html
Am I missing something?
John,
Those of us who attended Duke, particularly the pre-pc grads, cannot begin to thank you enough for your time and effort. You have done an outstanding job. PLEASE, do not let up. You, Bill Anderson, K.C,,et al are all that are doing anything to keep the MSM honest.
Have a happy and prosperous New Year.
Trinity60
Thanks John
I hope you have a Happy New Year.
Enjoy all you're doing here!
Kent
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