NYT Editor Defends Bad Duke Coverage But Former Public Editor Suggests Apology in Order
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1102
By Clay Waters
The Duke lacrosse “rape” hoax refuses to fade away, no doubt to the chagrin of New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller.
The Times features prominently in a comprehensive article by Rachel Smolkin in an upcoming edition of the American Journalism Review. Smolkin delivers a week-to-week dissection of the credulous media coverage given to false rape charges by a stripper against three Duke lacrosse players. Smolkin talked to former Times public editor Daniel Okrent, who was critical of his paper’s coverage at the time and remains so.
“‘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.'”
Executive Editor would have none of that, and lashed out against critics.
“Times Executive Editor Bill Keller says criticism of his paper’s performance has ‘in some instances been unfair to the point of hysteria.’ But he also says, ‘I think we were a little slow to get traction on the story, frankly. Partly we were slow figuring out who had custody of the story: sports, national, investigative. It took us awhile to get specific people focused on this as their responsibility.'”
Smolkin eventually focused on the Times story that garnered the most notoriety and criticism, the front-page, 5,600-word article on August 25, 2006 by Duff Wilson and Jonathan Glater.”Although the Times’ August story depicted a troubled investigation, overwrought summary graphs inflated Nifong’s case and downplayed his blunders: ‘By disclosing pieces of evidence favorable to the defendants, the defense has created an image of a case heading for the rocks,’ the story said. ‘But an examination of the entire 1,850 pages of evidence gathered by the prosecution in the four months after the accusation yields a more ambiguous picture. It shows that while there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong’s case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury.’
“Wilson and Glater relied heavily on exclusive access to 33 pages of typed notes and three pages of handwritten notes by Mark D. Gottlieb, the police sergeant supervising the investigation. Joseph B. Cheshire, an attorney for Evans, was quoted calling the belatedly filed report a ‘make-up document.’ Cheshire said Gottlieb told defense lawyers that he took few handwritten notes and relied on his memory and other officers’ notes.
“But elsewhere in the article, the journalists described those notes without skepticism. After detailing serious discrepancies between the accuser’s description of the suspects in Gottlieb’s notes and those of another officer, Benjamin W. Himan, the Times story stated, ‘The difference in the police accounts could not be explained.’ It added that Gottlieb ‘is by far the more experienced’ of the two.”
One of the few reporters who got the story right couldn’t believe the Times’ treatment.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=763