(A post in the old web log form: notes for those familiar with the material. Don’t look for hyperlinks or background in this post.)
This has to be very short. A longer Talking post will follow tomorrow.
Thanks for the heads up on what’s happening at the Editors’ Blog.
So N&O executive editor for news Melanie Sill says those who’ve criticized the N&O’s Hoax coverage “hate us.”
That’s so wrong but if you’re a long-time reader of the N&O’s Editors’ Blog, you know Melanie regularly lashes out like that at readers who expose N&O falsehoods.
If you count yourselves among the critics she says “hate us,” and that upsets you, imagine this: you’re one of the Duke students or a member of one of those student’s families.
Now you’re reading Melanie’s Sunday column or Ted Vaden’s Sunday column and they’re telling you the students and their parents are the ones responsible for the biased, false and racially inflammatory N&O reporting.
I don’t know how those young men and their families endured the last thirteen months, and now the N&O blaming them for its own deliberately malicious frauds and endangerment of the players.
On a positive note regarding the students’ families, there was a wonderful letter this week in The Chronicle from a person ID’ing as a grandfather of a player on last year’s team. I plan to post on the letter tomorrow.
I sent DU Police Director Dean a copy of my March 30 post asking for a current Durham CrimeStoppers link and information about what, if anything, DUPD did in response to the “Vigilante” poster.
I’ll keep pressing.
More tomorrow.
John
Friday, April 20, 2007
Talking to Regulars & Commenters – 4/19/07
Posted by JWM at 12:11 AM
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5 comments:
Hate is a strong word.
How about disappointed as all heck?
Or, even worse, how about not disappointed at all?
-AC
Durham PD is playing the old game of possum. It is the final defense tactic of a lost cause.
Melanie Sill is caught in a trap of her own making. Her April 17th Editors' Blog post "Revisionist History" and its comments tell the tale. It is well worth reading the entire thread.
Sill makes a feel-good charge: that criticism of the N&O's early coverage comes from people who smear The N&O with a broad brush. She claims that "many critics are creating a meta-narrative of their own that doesn't hold up when you examine specific stories or even the aggregate of stories after the first week or so." Sill's meta-narrative is that her "post will bring the usual barrage from people who hate The N&O." In fairness, she goes on, " Along with the haters, some more thoughtful critics have shared comments that offered more substance, which is the point of this exchange."
Having set out the nectar, Sill predictably attracted the bees. One commenter sets out the specifics of a chapter in the N&O's early coverage of the Hoax. Another recites a relevant verse. A third challenges Sill on her rhetoric; a fourth on the paper's whitewash of its record.
All haters, I guess.
To her credit, Sill pops up on multiple occasions in the forty-part thread. But what to say, what to say?
The temptation to delete must be strong. But what about journalistic ethics? And what about disk caches and PDF files that hateful readers might already have made?
"Who you gonna believe -- me, or your lyin' eyes?" (Amusing Google search of the term that Sill should have performed before hitting "post.")
Well she nailed me. I hate them. I have always hated liars, bigots, frauds, some criminals, cowards, betrayers of trust.
So, I have to give her that one. She nailed me. She forgot to mention all the hateful things they did, though, didn't she?
Be hateful, do hateful things, then whine about the just desserts, interesting strategy. Not intelligent, but interesting in its arrogance.
Thanks for the compliment. I look forward to reading your comments.
A Proud Duke Lacrosse Grandparent
G. Holman King
Granbury, TX
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