Wednesday, November 28, 2007

A Chronicle Double Standard

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, who recently published The Conscience of a Liberal, spoke at Duke University last evening. The school’s student-run newspaper, The Chronicle, gave his talk prominent coverage in today’s paper. (Krugman shares liberal 'Conscience' )

Fair enough.

But a few weeks ago when National Journal columnist Stuart Taylor, co-author with KC Johnson of Until Proven Innocent, spoke at Duke The Chronicle imposed a news blackout on Taylor’s appearance.

I posted on the blackout here and here.

I also sent Chronicle editor David Graham two emails. The first included this:

A talk at Duke by a nationally known columnist and editor who’s recently co-authored a widely-acclaimed book detailing the Duke Hoax and its enablement by many at the University is a news event The Chronicle should report to the Duke community.

But The Chronicle failed to tell readers Until Proven Innocent author Stuart Taylor would be speaking in Love Auditorium on Nov. 2 and that the Duke community and the public were invited.

Why?

I understand The Chronicle was given nine days notice of Taylor's appearance.

How does The Chronicle justify not informing the student body and others of Taylor’s appearance, especially as he had offered, if any Duke professor cared to, to change his talk format to a debate with the professor?

And why did The Chronicle decide to not report a single word of Taylor's talk and the Q&A which followed? Other media reported on them.
Today I left the following comment on the thread of The Chronicle’s Krugman story:
I'd like to do two things:

First, commend reporter Lisa Du and her editor(s) for an informative and well-organized news report of columnist and author Paul Krugman's appearance at Duke.

Second, ask why The Chronicle imposed a news blackout on the recent appearance at Duke of columnist and author Stuart Taylor?

I've twice written Chronicle editor David Graham and asked that question. I offered to post his response in full at my blog. But I never heard back from him.

I hope Graham or a Chronicle news editor will answer the question on this thread.

There are a great many people in the Duke community who look to The Chronicle for fair and balanced news coverage.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina
The double standard evident in The Chronicle’s treatment of Krugman’s and Taylor’s appearances is very disturbing and brings into question The Chronicle’s objectivity as a news source.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not a double standard- it is just the standard.

MacMood ImInAHijab, president of Iran speaks at Columbia and gets the kind of harassment a junior MP in England learns to hand out when he's in third grade. Liberals are PROUD.

The minutemen, ROTC, or Ann Coulter show up at Columbia and are chased off campus as quickly as you can put down your free trade soy vegan latte. Liberals are, if not proud, at most ruefully admonitory.

Repeat at every major university in the USA.

Not a double standard at all. Unfortunately.

-AC

Anonymous said...

Graham is gunning for a job in the MSM, wants to curry favor and not step on ANY toes. On the bright side, Ann Coulter recently wrote that during the 6 months ending 9-25-07, the New York Times subscription rate was down 4.51% to roughly 1 million readers and Sunday subscriptions were down 7.59% to about 1.5 million readers. "For you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for thee".

Anonymous said...

stephen - the news about the NYT just keeps getting better.

Anonymous said...

How appropriate! I LOVE it! Thank you Mr. Phelan!