Joan Foster & Cash Michaels

Joan Foster was one of the first “citizen journalists” to speak out at the Raleigh News & Observer’s Editors’ Blog on behalf of the Duke lacrosse players and honest journalism.

Joan has never wavered in her commitment to the players’ cause and to honest journalism.

But to borrow a phrase from the N&O’s Ruth (“You know you know”) Sheehan, something must have “gone horribly wrong” for Joan, because the next thing any of her many admirers knew, she’d become a blogger.

I don’t know about you, but my parents raised me not to say to people things like: “Geez, Joan, you were a citizen journalist. Now you’re a blogger. What happened? Do you need help getting your life back together?”

So I can't tell you how she fell from being a citizen journalist to blogging.

Cash Michaels is a columnist for The Wilmington Journal. He and I have had a few email exchanges concerning racially tinged incidents associated with the Duke Hoax. Our exchanges have been civil and productive.

While not a regular reader of Michaels, when I read his columns I'm impressed with his writing skills. He has a fine command of vocabulary; his sentences “move” and convey meaning.

As much as I admire Michaels’ written language skills, the content of what he writes is another matter.

I had hoped when the Hoax first drew national attention that Michaels would emerge as one of the “voices” I’d pay attention to. I hoped many others would as well.

But I no longer pay much attention to Michaels. It’s because he uses his columns to pass on to his readers things like the following:

With the exception of the three team co-captains that lived at the house – Matt Zash, Dan Flannery and Dave Evans - authorities maintain that none of the other team members present ever spoke to the police, though 46 players (excluding the lone black team member) were compelled to submit DNA samples to Durham police.

And this:

“A week and a half after the incident, police obtained a court order that 46 of the 47 men on the team be required to give DNA samples,” reported Newsweek Magazine in its April 10 edition. “By now the parents were hearing about the incident, and they began hiring lawyers, who told the young men to remain silent.”

And even this:

“We’re not saying that all 46 were involved,” Durham Police Cpl. David Addison, a department spokesman, told ABC News. “But we do know that some of the players inside that house on that evening knew what transpired and we need them to come forward.”

Now, that was all standard framing last March and April when the Raleigh News & Observer led a vicious and racially inflammatory attack by most of media on a group of white Duke students.

If Michaels’ writings above were written last April, I’d say he was nothing so much as just like many others in media.

But all of the above appeared in Michaels’ January 27, 2007 column!

Can you believe that!

January 27, 2007 was more than six weeks after DNA expert Meehan admitted he and Nifong had conspired to withhold exculpatory evidence; and after the NC State Bar had brought one set of ethics charges; and after the Bar had brought a second set of ethics charges against Nifong; and after public pressure had forced Nifong to recuse himself from the case.

By late January 2007 even Cpl. David Addison was no longer shilling the false “we need them to come forward” line. By that time, if Addison has any sense, he was talking to an attorney about what he could do to save himself from what will surely happen to DPD Sgt. Gottlieb and Inv. Himan.

But Michaels ran that stuff without any qualification or information to his readers about how discredited it now is.

Michaels could've stood out for helping unravel the Hoax and seeking justice. Instead, he's earned himself a place alongside such Hoax luminaries as Nancy Grace, Bob Ashley, and Dick Brodhead.

Joan Foster has just written a wonderful poem concerning some of those who might have emerged from the Hoax with their reputations enhanced but instead acted in ways that left them scorned figures in the eyes of many. Michaels is one of them. Joan’s poem begins:

Late last night, in the Know Bookstore, I noticed a small band.
They sat like mourners from the gravesite, their hankies in their hands.
I motioned to a regular, who were these people, so bereaved?
"Why that's "The Nifong-Must-Have-Something Club"... still struggling to believe."…

"Cash Michaels is the pensive guy...he almost got it right.
He might have been The Hero now, but he "caved" and left the fight.
From truth to trolling message boards, Sister Survivor's web defender.
He moans aloud, 'I had my chance! I could have been a real Contender!'..."

Cash Michaels had the gifts and skills to get it right.

Reading what I have of Michaels’ Hoax coverage has been painful. As Joan makes clear,with the passing of time he sank lower and lower.

Michaels, like Nifong, seemed determined to do things sensible people knew would hurt him in the end. Reading Michaels on the Hoax has been like watching one big Cash trashes Cash transaction.

Sad.