Posted on 07/17/2007 1:40:56 PM PDT by abb
From AJR, June/July 2007 issue Justice Delayed August/September Preview » Many in the media jettisoned caution--and the presumption of innocence--in their coverage of an alleged rape by Duke lacrosse players, and were too slow to correct the record as the case unraveled. But some journalists distinguished themselves with skeptical and incisive reporting.
Related reading: Naming Names
By Rachel Smolkin Rachel Smolkin (rsmolkin@ajr.umd.edu) is AJR's managing editor.
As Reade Seligmann choked back tears on the witness stand, the 21-year-old Duke University lacrosse player dubbed "Flustered" by teammates was poised, compelling and clearly hurting. He told of a world turned "upside down" and of experiencing "as lonely of a feeling as you can ever imagine" after he was indicted for allegedly raping a stripper at a team party on March 13, 2006. He described the stinging slights from former friends, the terrifying death threats--and the inescapable media horde.
On April 18, 2006, Seligmann and teammate Collin Finnerty were arrested on charges of first-degree rape, first-degree sex offense and first-degree kidnapping. After posting bond, Seligmann hurried out the back of the Durham County Jail, but there was no hiding from the media. "We pretty much had to run to our car to get there," he told a hushed courtroom and a disciplinary panel of the North Carolina State Bar on June 15, 2007. "From that initial bum rush to our car, that was the beginning of just a media frenzy for an entire year, and it continues now."
Michael B. Nifong--the district attorney who pursued Seligmann, Finnerty and teammate David Evans even as evidence of their innocence mounted and his case imploded--was held accountable for his actions. Hours after Seligmann testified, Nifong announced his intention to resign; the next day, he was disbarred.
The media incurred no such penalties. No loss of license, no disciplinary panels, no prolonged public humiliation for the reporters, columnists, cable TV pundits, editorial writers and editors who trumpeted the "Duke lacrosse rape case" and even the "gang-rape case" in front-page headlines, on the nightly news and on strident cable shoutfests.
Of course, Nifong had information and power the media did not. His failing in the case cannot be overstated, nor can it be equated to that of a throng of journalists and pundits, however odious some of their reporting and commentary. But the media deserve a public reckoning, too, a remonstrance for coverage that--albeit with admirable exceptions--all too eagerly embraced the inflammatory statements of a prosecutor in the midst of a tough election campaign. Fueled by Nifong, the media quickly latched onto a narrative too seductive to check: rich, wild, white jocks had brutalized a working class, black mother of two.
"It was too delicious a story," says Daniel Okrent, a former New York Times public editor, who is critical of the Times' coverage and that of many other news organizations. "It conformed too well to too many preconceived notions of too many in the press: white over black, rich over poor, athletes over non-athletes, men over women, educated over non-educated. Wow. That's a package of sins that really fit the preconceptions of a lot of us."
The lessons of the media's rush to judgment and their affair with a sensational, simplistic storyline rank among journalism's most basic tenets: Be fair; stick to the facts; question authorities; don't assume; pay attention to alternative explanations.
"The outcome of this whole story is square pegs can't be fit into round holes, and we saw the dangers of what happens when modern media attempts to do that," says Duke senior Ryan McCartney, who for much of the saga was editor of the Chronicle, the independent student newspaper. "Hopefully this case will kind of go down in the books as a lesson to media organizations on all levels to...second-guess themselves any time they think a story is clear-cut."
Too often, the preconceptions--rather than the facts--dictated not only the tone of the coverage but also its volume and prominence. "I think that you begin by being prudent," Okrent says. "And that's not the way that the American press began on this story. You begin by being prudent and, as things develop, that determines whether you amp up the volume or not. Here it began with a roar at the very start. It went in the wrong direction. If it had begun calmly and prudently, it never would have become a roar."
snip
ROFLMAO! I hadn’t seen that one, and I thought I had kept up with everything on this case.
The lessons of the media's rush to judgment and their affair with a sensational, simplistic storyline rank among journalism's most basic tenets: Be fair; stick to the facts; question authorities; don't assume; pay attention to alternative explanations.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Riiiiiiight.
Liberal journalists don't practice any of that today.
They are paid propaganda hounds with an agenda. The words "integrity" and "professionalism" are what they expect everyone else to adhere to - not them.
perfect!
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom International Inc.
I was too late.
Isn't that the truth. It took me months to convince my mom that these boys did not rape that girl. She still thinks if its on "that damn internet of yours", then it is just wishful thanking and wrong. She's a work in progress.
Scary to think what would happen to these boys without it.
Many people should be in jail over this. Many people should be sued. Nothing like that will happen, since the authorities have waited until it’s all over, and a mind-numbed public has forgotten, to just let it all disappear.
There will be no jail for the criminals nifong and the female stripper. This is an injustice.
During the dismissal of the charges against the student athletes, the “new” prosecutor announced that they were not going to pursue Magnum for her role in the debacle. I hope that when the lawsuits are filed that she and Roberts are named as parties defendant so that their depositios can be taken and their versions of events compared to Nifong’s.
depositios = depositions
whoops
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