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October 21, 2006
A question to the media
Posted at 11:51 AM by Jon Ham*

Yesterday, at the Duke lacrosse case panel held at Duke Law School, I asked a question of the panelists. After most had admitted regrets at the way they had written or played the story in the early going, I wondered if they would do it differently in the future. I asked the question pretty much like this: “Given the unseemly glee that the media framed the story in race, class and gender terms, especially emphasizing the upper-class, prep-school, white-privilege aspects, what are the chances that another story with these ingredients would be played the same way the next time.”

The only panelist who volunteered to answer the question was Newsweek’s Susannah Meadows, who said she didn’t understand what I was getting at. The upper-class, prep-school, white-privilege aspects, she said, were facts that needed to be reported, and they would be reported similarly the next time.

Those panelists who seemed to think that these aspects of the story were handled responsibly, that they were simply facts reported in the course of covering a story, should read this post by K.C. Johnson. And then read the columns by News & Observer local columnists in the period after the story broke and tell me there was no headlong rush to demonize and convict the lacrosse players because they were upper-class, prep-school, privileged white guys.

It’s not just the words used in the news stories that frame a story. It’s those words pumped up by local columnists that can turn objective description into unfair characterizations.

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October 20, 2006
The Duke lacrosse panel, Part 3
Posted at 8:49 PM by Jon Ham

OK, I’ve been to dinner and will use this post to empty my notebook from today’s panel on the Duke lacrosse rape allegations.

The early part of the session was spent discussing how a local crime story morphed into a national sensation. Everyone agreed that the “perfect storm” of race, gender and class came together to entice the national media from the media capitals. As a result, there followed several weeks of “parachute” journalism, in which national correspondents swooped into Durham to get a piece of the story.

That sometimes had absurd consequences. Seyward Darby, who was the Duke Chronicle editor at the time of the incident, was critical of the media visitors from out of town. “We’d watch the national news and they’d say something and we’d look at each other and say, ‘That’s not the case at all.’” When visiting news crews asked her about Duke’s allegedly divided campus, “I told them that the only thing dividing the campus was their powerlines.”

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, a 1986 Duke grad who got his law degree in 1992, criticized the opinion portions of the 24-hour news channels for spreading many of the untruths about Duke and race relations in Durham. “I was on [a show] with a reporter from Detroit who was commenting on the racial tension in Durham,” he said. What could she know about racial tension in Durham? he asked. The reporter also referred to a “pattern of misbehaviour on the lacrosse team,” Bilas said, but could give no examples of such behaviour when pressed.

Bilas and fellow panelist James E. Coleman, Jr., a Duke law professor and chairman of the committee that examined the lacrosse program last spring and summer, agreed that had it not been for Durham DA Mike Nifong’s many press conferences early on, the story would not have metastasized as it did. Coleman pointed to the many things Nifong said “that were factually not true,” such as the “wall of silence” among players, the gang rape that never occurred, etc.

An interesting moment came when one questioner in the audience said he was “surprised by the joviality and light-heartedness” of the discussion. “Do any of you hold yourselves accountable as reporters that so many lives have been ruined?” he asked. The consensus seemed to be that, yes, they worry about it, but that they can’t do much about it when people are charged who might later turn out to be innocent. Jerrold Footlick, a former Newsweek editor and now a consultant, said he was optimistic. “If they’re acquitted, their lives are not ruined.”

Another questioner wondered if the media would focus on prosecutorial misconduct as much as it focused on the initial charges now that much more is known about the initial investigation and misinformation from the DA. The N&O’s John Drescher said his paper has been very aggressive following up on those leads. This prompted one audience member to yell: “I haven’t seen Nifong’s mug shot on the cover of a magazine yet.” A round of applause followed that remark.

Earlier in the session, Newsweek’s Susannah Meadows said when she first heard that the players had voluntarily submitted to DNA tests without lawyers present she felt that was a sign they could be innocent. Coleman cautioned reporters against that reaction, asking Meadows if she would have assumed they were guilty if they had brought lawyers with them. He then criticized Nifong for the DA’s comments on ESPN that if the players were innocent why were they hiring lawyers.

UPDATE: For a good list of blogs and Web sites covering the Duke case, go to Durham In Wonderland, K.C. Johnson’s fine blog, and check out his blogroll. You might also want to check out William L. Anderson’s columns on the subject.

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The Duke lacrosse panel, Part 2
Posted at 5:50 PM by Jon Ham

Panel moderator Frank Stasio asked the journalists on the panel if there was anything they regretted about the way their organizations handled the Duke lacrosse story.

The N&O’s John Drescher said, “Sure there are some things I’d do differently,” and then added, “I think overall our coverage is good. I’m proud of it.” He did say that early on his paper used the word “victim” instead of “accuser” in stories. “I definitely regret that we weren’t careful enough with that word.” And also: “There were a few times I think we emphasized the class angle too much.”

The Herald-Sun’s Bob Ashley’s first-mentioned regret had nothing to do with mistakes: “One of my regrets on this, quite honestly, is that I’ve not had enough resources to throw at the story.” He said his was one of the smallest news operations involved in covering this national story. He did say that he wished his paper had “been more aggressive” in looking at the competence of the early police investigation, and added that “there was a lot of community sentiment driving anger” toward the lacrosse players and that his paper should have been more careful how they reported that.

Susannah Meadows of Newsweek said: “In the early very competitive days we certainly would be breathless about some new nugget of information” that later turned out to be unimportant. “Be mindful of how competitive you’re being,” she advised journalists who find themselves in that position. Meadows is widely acknowledged (by bloggers, anyway) to have written one of the best — and fairest — articles on the case. When several audience questioners criticized the general news coverage she began defending Newsweek’s stories, only to have several audience members point out that the criticisms were aimed at the local newspapers, not her magazine.

Later, in response to a question about why the media seemed to assume the players were guilty, Meadows made this comment: “You had a public official [Nifong] who said, ‘I am sure!’, and say it to your face. We expect our public officials to know what they’re talking about.”

More later.

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The Duke lacrosse panel, Part 1
Posted at 5:04 PM by Jon Ham

It was inevitable, I guess, that the panel today at Duke Law School about the Duke lacrosse rape allegations would get around to discussing bloggers. Kudos to former Duke basketball star Jay Bilas of ESPN for bringing up the dreaded word about 20 minutes into the festivities. After several journalists had described their approach to the story in its early days, Bilas said it was bloggers to whom he eventually turned for news on the case. “Some of these blogs have gained their own credibility,” he said.

Raleigh News & Observer managing editor John Drescher allowed as how blogs keep newspapers on their toes. “The bloggers are what’s different about this story,” he said. But he added: “My only real reservation is you really ought to have to identify yourself.” This was, in all likelihood, a reference to John In Carolina, a blogger who has been relentless in his criticism of the way the local papers have handled the story.

Seyward Darby, who was editor of the Duke Chronicle when the story broke last spring, didn’t mince words. “I’m going to be honest. I hate blogging.” Moderator Frank Stasio of North Carolina Public Radio asked her why. “I find a lot of bloggers, especially younger bloggers, to be self-indulgent,” she replied.

During the audience Q-and-A, the first questioner brought up bloggers, saying “they had the will” to expose some of the questionable prosecutorial and police actions in the case when many journalists didn’t. Some journalists, he said, instead “had the will to believe this false story from the beginning.”

Toward the end of the session, when one member of the audience asked why it took so long for journalists to report that the lacrosse players had been instructed by Duke officials not to tell their parents, one panelist, Jerroid Footlick, said he was surprised to learn that. “Read the blogs,” several members of the audience advised the former Newsweek journalist and now consultant on media and public affairs.

More later.

UPDATE: Another anonymous blogger who’s been following this needs to be mentioned: The Johnsville News. He, too, has been following every detail of this case. Beware, in case you don’t want to know, that his site identifies the accuser by name.

http://triangle.johnlocke.org/blog/ [For the record]

* Ham was a former long-time editor at the Herald-Sun, prior to the Paxton housecleaning.
An examination of his writings explains why Ashley would not want him in the newroom.