Chronicle editor doesn’t “understand”

Readers Note:

This is a 1,2,3, post.

ITEM 1) - Provides background and an email I sent Duke Chronicle editor-in-chief Ryan McCartney after a Chronicle editorial, when discussing the start of the Men’s lacrosse team’s 2007 season, referred to “the now-notorious (sic) rape scandal.”

I told McCartney that while many last Spring, including DA Mike Nifong, had used the phrase “notorious rape scandal,” fair-minded people had always been reluctant to use it. I said that now even people like President Brodhead, who for nine months was one of Nifong’s chief enablers, won’t use the phrase. So why was The Chronicle using it?


ITEM 2) – Editor McCartney responded promptly in an email you’ll read in Item 2. He says his email is off the record, but I hadn’t agreed to that. I reminded him via email of that and he subsequently acknowledged I hadn’t agreed it would be off the record.

During the current academic year, McCartney and I have had both on and off the record exchanges.

McCartney has asked that I treat as off the record his comments principally concerning: first, my urging The Chronicle to editorialize support for Reade Seligmann and his family regarding the threats, including death threats, they endured from hateful individuals and the New Black Panthers on May 18 outside the Durham County Courthouse, and later within the courtroom; and second, I often told McCartney why I thought it was important for Duke that The Chronicle raise questions regarding President Brodhead’s many failures, including his failure to condemn the hate filled people who came on campus the night of March 29 to circulate the “Vigilante” poster, make threats concerning the players and deface their photos on the “Vigilante” posters. All those actions happened literally right outside Brodhead’s office windows.

I encouraged McCartney and the editorial board to either editorially question Brodhead on his silence regarding the threats directed at Seligmann and his parents, or explain to Chronicle readers why it wasn’t doing that.

In all those exchanges, I’ve respected McCartney’s requests that his responses be off the record.


ITEM 3) – Is my email reply to McCartney’s email.

John
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ITEM 1) -- On Friday, Feb. 23, Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle, ran an editorial that began:

This Saturday, the Duke men's lacrosse team will retake the field and play for the first time since the advent of the now-notorious (sic) rape scandal.

I decided to send the following electronic letter to The Chronicle’s editor-in-chief, Ryan McCartney.

John
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Dear Editor McCartney:

Re: Your Feb. 12 editorial beginning: “This Saturday, the Duke men's lacrosse team will retake the field and play for the first time since the advent of the now-notorious (sic) rape scandal.”

”Notorious rape scandal?”

Really?

What “notorious rape scandal?”

Sure, some of Duke’s Arts & Sciences professors who fill the University’s most highly endowed chairs were loud last Spring in their demands for the expulsion of students those professors and others said were involved in the “notorious rape scandal.”

We all remember then Professor Houston Baker telling us about “male athletes, veritably given license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech, and feel proud of themselves in the bargain.”

Durham DA Mike Nifong agreed with the faculty about the “notorious rape scandal.”

But sensible people last Spring were turned off by Nifong and those Duke faculty members. The agreed with the Women’s lacrosse team: Innocent. Or they suspended judgment.

Even President Brodhead, for so many months Nifong’s most prominent enabler, doesn’t talk about the “notorious rape scandal.”

Brodhead now tells people he’s “one of the biggest critics of the way the players have been treated.”

But The Chronicle is still telling the Duke community and everyone else about “the now-notorious (sic) rape scandal.”

Why?

Editor McCartney, you owe your readers an explanation.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina
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ITEM 2) -- Dear John,

Off the record, I really don't understand the point you're trying to make here. This case, and everything that surrounds it, has been considered by many to be a "scandal." We've used that term in the past, and you never picked up on it then. Other papers have used that term in the past, and you don't criticize them.

I might be missing something. If that's the case, please let me know. But I simply don't understand what you're trying to argue.

Best,
Ryan

(Here’s the second email McCartney sent after I told him I hadn’t agreed to an off the record exchange - John)


I say "off the record" so that the two of us can have a more frank discussion of the issue you raise. Technically, both parties have to agree to that, yes. In spirit, though, and in the interest of having frank conversations with others usually it's not an issue.
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ITEM 3) - Dear Editor McCartney:

I thought my point regarding what The Chronicle editorial board called “the now-notorious rape scandal.” was obvious. But I’ll give it a second go, and try to make it more obvious.

Last Spring we heard a lot of “notorious rape scandal” talk. But that quickly began to change as fair-minded people realized what was going on.

NY Times columnist David Brooks referred to what was happening as “a witch hunt.” The Jonesville News began calling the events “The Hoax.”

Even the Raleigh News & Observer, which led the media part of the frame-up, decided to title its archive of Duke lax stories “The Duke lacrosse controversy.”

Here’s part of a response I received last August from Associate Vice President for News & Communications David Jarmul when I noted Duke News was using tags asserting items were about “Sexual Assault” when in fact no one had established a sexual assault had occurred:

[excerpts]The words that appeared after the colon, i.e., "Information on Sexual Assault," were part of a longer phrase that comprised the "title tag" in the page's underlying code. However, as you saw, the rest of the phrase got cut off on the search result.

The title tag was written in the days immediately after this incident became public, when the focus was squarely on the alleged sexual assault. We've now updated it to read: "Duke Lacrosse: Information on the March 13 Incident and Related Events."

Thanks again for alerting us to this.

Last August Jarmul understood that what we learned about the Hoax should influence how we describe the events that followed the initial false witness of Crystal Mangum in the early hours of March 14, 2006.

I wish you and your fellow editorial board members understood that as well.

As you point out, Editor McCartney, some people still use the phrase “notorious rape scandal.”

I’ve seen it recently at the website of the New Black Panthers. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn some, maybe even most, of Duke’s discredited A&S faculty Group of 88 use the phrase. And, of course, The Chronicle editorial board uses it.

I’m not surprised to see the phrase embraced and used by the New Black Panthers and Group of 88 members. But I was surprised and bothered to see it in The Chronicle.

I think my point was obvious and valid in the first place; and surely you understand it now, even if you don’t agree it’s valid.

Here's a link to a post concerning our exchange.
http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2007/03/chronicle-editor-doesnt-understand.html

I'll place whatever you write in response on the main page, with links to the previous two posts concerning The Chronicle's "notorious rape scandal."

Sincerely,

John