The McClatchy Company’s Raleigh News & Observer is proud of its Duke lacrosse coverage, with its exec editor for news, Melanie Sill, crowing it’s “pushed hard” on the story.
Examples of what she means:
1) publication of the infamous “vigilante poster” containing face-photos of 40 lacrosse players and “WANTED” stamped on it;
2) describing Duke’s campus as “beer-sotted;”
3) searching courthouse records using Duke Men’s lacrosse team rosters as far back as 1999 for any legal charge involving any person whose name appeared on any of the rosters.
But for all its hard pushing, The N&O continues to slant, underreport or just plain ignore certain important Duke lacrosse stories.
The latest?
On Wednesday, May 24, The N&O failed to report two stories its smaller rival, The Durham Herald Sun, and national media reported.
The first concerned the Duke Women’s lacrosse team’s decision to wear “Innocent” stamped on their sweatbands as they play this weekend in Boston for the NCAA Woman’s national championship. Excerpts from the Durham H-S:
"Obviously we want to win a national championship for ourselves, but definitely also for the university and the men's team," junior Leigh Jester said. "They don't really have a chance to play their season, which is a shame.The second story concerned defense claims that evidence provided last Friday by DA Nifong’s office.
"We'd love to bring it home not only for ourselves, but also for them."
As reported in the Durham H-S the defense claims the evidence reveals the accuser told police “she had sex with three men around the time of the alleged rape.” The men are “identified as her boyfriend and two drivers for the escort service for which she worked.” The Durham H-S said “Nifong would neither confirm nor deny the defense claims."
But on May 24 The N&O couldn’t find anything it thought its faithful readers should know about anything having to do with the Duke lacrosse case. But on the previous day it did.
The N&O’s Tuesday, May 23, front page contained an above the fold headline story:
Lie tests rankle victim backers”Victim backers?”
The N&O really gives its bias away with its headline, doesn’t it?
As for an accuser’s backers being rankled by use of lie detectors, in the Duke lacrosse case who has trouble understanding why the accuser’s backers would be rankled by anything that helps get at the truth?
The N&O’s ignoring the two stories while pushing hard with, Lie tests rankle victim backers, is just what you’d expect from the newspaper that’s been nicknamed, “The Prosecutor’s Friend.”
Update: The N&O just got around to mentioning in the sports section of its May 25 edition the Women’s decision to wear the “Innocent” sweatbands. I’ll post about that N&O’s report this evening. Meanwhile, you can read it here.
If you compare The N&O reporting on the "Innocent" sweatbands to that of other news organizations, I think you'll agree there’s no danger The N&O will lose its “Prosecutor’s Friend” nickname.
0 comments:
Post a Comment