Posted on 07/19/2007 4:05:30 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Philadelphia man isn't only GOP member switching sides in 2008
Ever been harassed by a group of irate Republicans? For the past few days, since a news story of mine was published on Monday, I have been bombarded with dozens of daily e-mails from Republicans calling me a liar, demanding I be fired, and insisting on a retraction.
The grumbling arose partially because my editor took a small part of my story and made it into a headline: "GOP lawyer sold on Dems." Reporters don't write headlines, editors do. And they want to write something catchy so readers will read the darned story.
The story was not about the GOP lawyer; it was about the speeches five Democratic presidential candidates gave to a convention of trial lawyers (those two words "trial lawyers" also make Republicans crazy) last Sunday. As reporters usually do, I asked two attendees after the session what they thought about the speeches.
One of the men I interviewed, Jim Ronca, identified himself as a disgruntled Republican, fed up with the Bush White House, who was going to give his vote and money to Democrats. In my story I called him a "staunch Republican." His wife was standing by his side, and so was a friend, a Democrat from New York, Ted Oshman, neither of whom disputed Ronca's description of himself as a Republican.
Oshman added during our interview that he could "not eliminate one of" the Democrats, they all spoke so well. That line ended up in a subhead on the story.
After the story was published, some Republicans posted to right-wing Web sites the two headlines and the two paragraphs quoting Ronca.
And so the madness began.
Industrious partisans, upset that anyone calling himself a Republican could possibly think of supporting the Democrats, decided to "investigate" Ronca, an attorney from Philadelphia. And what they found, they told me, was a long history of Ronca giving more money to Democrats than Republicans. (In fact, much of the money he donated to Democrats was after George W. Bush was elected.)
Richard Rentfrow sent a "notice" each day demanding I give him "Jim Ronca's GOP credentials" or he would "out" me to other papers and Web sites. After he sent me what he described as his "5th notice" he posted an e-mail decrying me as "a lying liberal Democrat girl reporter." Thank you Richard, at my age it's nice to be thought of as a girl.
"Is this a story or an editorial?" wrote Reg Fennell. "You know your "staunch Republican" is NOTHING OF THE SORT! You know he has a history of not supporting Republicans. Did you really believe this would go unnoticed or are you simply comfortable with intellectual dishonesty to your readers? Maybe you're just lazy and careless." Oh, Reg, calm down.
Here's another from Jeffery Cernekee: "It seems that you must be on the demorats [sic] payroll. Your claim that a prominent republican is changing his ways. Too bad the truth will come out and of course it did that he gave most of his money to the demorats [sic]. Will you please get you [sic] facts straight or quit reporting on things you do not have a clue about. . . . Do you have to lie to give the impression that people are leaving the republicans to vote for the demorats [sic]? How bush of you."
Karen Mango wrote: "Have you been fired yet for your lie about your trial lawyer/staunch republican turned democrat? Are you shamefaced for believing a TRIAL LAWYER??? I hope you finally did the research that the bloggers did with a google entry -- your Ronca has given to democrats all his life. He lied to you, and you printed it. You didn't research, you were salivating over going to print with an anti-republican story, and the truth never mattered. Don't fall back on the ''he said he was a staunch republican,'' because your article does not attribute his political stance as a quote, but as fact.
"I can't wait for your next article: All Trial Lawyers are Lying Jerks."
The final kicker for all you Republicans who read my column with a magnifying glass is a press release issued Wednesday: "One of Chicago's key Republican fund-raisers, CME Group Executive Chairman Terry Duffy today announced that he is endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for the 2008 election."
Duffy says he intends to remain a registered Republican.
mailto:jhunter@suntimes.com
KERRY, JOHN F
VIA JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC
05/27/2004 2000.00 24981236325
Same guy? If so, how much effort (or brains) does it take to check the FEC's website, Ms. Hunter? If that's the same Ronca, either you're incompetent, or you didn't want to know.
INDEED! Look at those eyes!
“Terry Duffy” is a real person, a Chicago-area businessman whom I’ve already exposed on the Trib’s “Swamp” website as a person who’s contributed to a lot of Democrats (including Harold Ford and Dick Durbin) and who is so not “key” that the Trib itself has never mentioned him as a republican.
More lies from Ms. Hunter.
yeah, as if lawyers are republican anyway. rare as hen teeth i tell ya
In Illinois you don’t register by party. You can’t, by law. so when Ms. Hunter says Duffy intends to remain a “registered Republican”, she’s either lying, or betraying her ignorance of IL election law (she’s Canadian, I believe).
Dishonesty from a Democrat?
She’s typical Liberal garbage.
And now that she’s been publicly exposed, she does what Democrats do - she is shameless and evasive yet.
Hunter should replace the ‘h’ with a ‘c’.
In my worst nightmares, I could never look at or touch a skank with that face.
She needs to change her name to Kunter.
My email to the writer....
Jennifer,
From Webster’s Dictionary:
Staunch - steadfast in loyalty or principle
“Staunch Republicans” don’t give money to Democratic candidates, parties or causes. Likewise, “Staunch Democrats” don’t give money to Republican candidates, parties or causes.
Considering that a lawyer was giving money to both parties, he was likely doing it for professional, not personal reasons.
Your description of the person as “Staunch” was simply wrong and misleading. And that wasn’t your editor’s fault. It was yours.
Bryan24
In a nutshell, Ms. Hunter defends the inaccuracy of her article by a) blaming the headline writer, and 2) pointing to select letter-writers’ intemperate tone and misspellings. Neither has any bearing on the underlying accuracy of the story.
What we learn from Ms. Hunter’s defensive piece is that the Sun-Times, as a matter of policy, constructs headlines designed only to suck people into reading a story. Readers should not rely on them to accurately reflect what follows.
We also learn that Ms. Hunter and her editors have their own version of fact-checking. Bystanders who don’t object to or correct an interview subject’s statement counts as second-sourcing. Those are some strange journalistic standards.
If a misleading headline is acceptable, and the underlying accuracy of source statements is not verified, then what, exactly, is the point of a newspaper? Don’t answer that, Ms. Hunter. We already know what you think the point is, and that’s the wrong answer.
Can we start a “Busted Skank Alert”?
adjective
Adhering firmly and devotedly, as to a person, a cause, or a duty: allegiant, constant, faithful, fast, firm1, liege, loyal, steadfast, true.
Antonyms: disloyal, irresolute, undependable, unreliable, weak
*********
In Demorat (sic) world, I guess it depends on what the meaning of staunch is.
The final kicker for all you Republicans who read my column with a magnifying glass is a press release issued Wednesday: “One of Chicago’s key Republican fund-raisers, CME Group Executive Chairman Terry Duffy today announced that he is endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for the 2008 election.”
Duffy says he intends to remain a registered Republican.
Anyone check out Duffy’s credentials as a Key Republican fundraiser?
FYI! One thing she wrote is the fact that news editors do put on the headlines and will change the leads and why a lot of times headlines/leads do not match the story. It is done even by editors of college papers and and continues on up. Reporters do not put on the headlines and why you will see different headlines in different papers.
Bwahaha! She writes things that aren't supposed to be scrutinzed? Well, that ought to be good for 2-fold increase of circulation (good thing she sleeps with her boss)!
I'm sure she's fabulously famous on DU...posting things no one is supposed to read!
What a pissy elitist she is!
Great job. I hope you sent it to Jennifer.
that is not the Sun-Times’ Jennifer Hunter!
I am sure that is not the Jennifer Hunter of the Sun-times
When you add the city Chicago and the name Duffy together, the odds of his being Republican are extremely low.
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