N&O Public Editor Scams - Post 2

Readers Note: If you're already familiar with the background to this series and have read Post 1, you many want to skip down and start at the star (****)line.

For those new to the "N&O Public Editor Scams" series or just wanting a "refresher," The Raleigh News & Observer has a public editor, Ted Vaden, whose job is to watch out for readers’ interests. In fact, Vaden likes readers to think of him as their “watch dog.”

Vaden writes a Sunday column. His April 15 column was titled, “Assessing The N&O’s lacrosse coverage.”

A more accurate title would be: “Scamming readers about The N&O’s Hoax coverage.”

Vaden's column contains a few grudging admissions of N&O errors which he minimizes. The rest of the column is a mix of air brushing, factual errors, blame-shifting and blandish puffery about the role of newspapers.

As public editor, Vaden owed readers a thoughtful, no holds barred examination of the N&O's biased, often false and racially inflammatory Hoax coverage. Instead, he gave them a scam.

This is the second post in a series detailing Vaden's scamming.

This second post, like the first, comments on one section of Vaden's column. In subsequent posts, I’ll comment on other column sections or assertions Vaden made.

I hope you read the series. I’ll be interested to know whether you agree his column is a scam.

I’ll send Vaden links, invite his comments and offer to publish them.

If past history is any judge, I won’t get back much, if anything, of substance.

John
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Vaden’s April 15, 2007 column is here. I’m commenting in this post on one section with the subhead: “Fairness in editorials.” Here's the section in full:

On the editorial pages -- operated separately from the news reporting -- the paper raised early questions about the fairness of the prosecution. In two editorials in May, the paper questioned the police lineup procedure and the prosecutor's refusal to meet with and hear evidence from the defendants' attorneys. "For justice to be served, certainly the accuser deserves a vigorous prosecution on the basis of the evidence," one editorial said. "But if the alleged attackers' right to fair treatment is abused, any case against them could, and should, melt away under the courts' scrutiny."

It should be noted also that an early editorial called for canceling the lacrosse season, which Duke President Richard Brodhead subsequently did. (bold added)

That single sentence in bold refers to the N&O’s March 28 editorial, “Lacrosse time-out.” (pay req’d)The sentence is the only comment Vaden made that can be construed as critical of anything his N&O employers said or failed to say editorially concerning the Hoax, its false accuser, those who framed, their enablers and the victims - most of all the players and their families but also the community.

In the first post I pointed out some things Vaden didn’t mention in his assessment of his employer’s “Fariness in editorials.”

They included telling readers Mangum was “a victim” and referring to “the victim's story.” Praising Mangum because "reporting to the police that she was attacked was an act of courage;” and adding "no one -- no one -- deserves the violence alleged here. “

There was a lot more like that.

In this post I want to ask some questions which a proper public editor would answer.

The N&O's March 28 editorial included a retelling of the false story the N&O had scripted for its March 25 “anonymous interview” story about the March 13/14 party the N&O said, with no qualification whatever, ended “in sexual violence.”

That prompts me to ask some questions every N&O reader should be asking. So should pundits and others now writing about the Hoax.

When editorial page editor Steve Ford published the March 28 editorial, did he know about the extraordinary cooperation the players had been providing police since March 16? The editorial says nothing about the players' cooperation.

It's had to believe Ford and his editorial writers didn't know about the cooperation. The Chronicle had reported on it March 21. Duke University mentioned their cooperation in a press release March 24. N&O reporters knew about it even before the N&O "broke" the story.

What explanation is there for the N&O’s editorial failure to mention the players cooperation?

Did Ford & his staff know that in Mangum's March 24 “anonymous interview” with the N&O, she discussed Kim Roberts?

Did they know that according to the N&O's most recent account of the "anonymous interview,” Mangum alleged Roberts was also raped at the party?

Did they know Mangum alleged Roberts didn’t report the rape for fear of losing her job?

Did they know Mangum alleged Roberts would “do anything for money?”

Vaden should be providing answers to all of the above questions.

How else can readers judge whether Steve Ford and his staff were, like the rest of us, given a fraudulent account of the “anonymous interview?”

Or did Ford and his staff simply join others at the N&O who were framing the players as a group made up of three rapists and their teammates who were covering up the gang-rape of “a victim” whose “reporting she was attacked” the N&O said “was an act of courage?”

I’ll say more about Vaden’s “Fairness in editorials” section and other N&O Hoax editorials tomorrow.

Also, I'll post later today in response to some of you who reasonably asked whether there's any point in sending links to Vaden or directing questions to him.

John