Geneva Says, 'I Quit'

Poynter Online is a website for news people that says it’s “everything you need to be a better journalist.”

Well, our old friend Geneva Overholser, who always wants to be a better journalist, has a big-time issue with Poynter Online.

In the event you’ve forgotten who Overholser is, let me refresh your memory. She made some news herself when she was editor at the local paper a few years ago.

While Overholser was editor, the managing editor was Dave Westphal, Westphal had been one of the sports editors with whom I worked in my earlier writing life. I thought highly of the skills – the newsroom skills, that is – of both Overholser and Westphal.

They did what I thought was a good job of running the newsroom under some trying times. The parent Gannett Co. was making things tough for them and for others who worked at the local paper in those days.

Overholser and Westphal seemed to work well together inside the newsroom, and evidently they worked well outside the newsroom. In fact, their relationship worked so well that it broke up two marriages. Eventually, Overholser and Westphal both quit the paper, moved to Washington, D.C., and married. And, yes, they married each other.

Overholser now is a professor at the University of Missouri journalism school, her columns appear in the Washington Post and until the last couple of days she’s been writing a column for Poynter Online.

Now, though, she’s pissed. And she says she has written her last column for Poynter. Overholser made her decision after Poynter’s editors edited the name of the woman who accused Kobe Bryant of rape out of a column she wrote.

This column was filed Sept. 9, but publication was delayed as a result of review and discussion by editors and the travel schedule of the author.

“(Name withheld by editors) is taking her case against Kobe Bryant out of the criminal court and into civil court in Colorado, and it is time her name became standard media usage—instead of being reserved for radio shockjocks, Internet hitmen, Kobe Bryant’s attorney (who ‘mistakenly’ used her name repeatedly in court) or the documents (with her name and address) that the court accidentally put online.

“As I wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, ‘Her voluntary step further into the public limelight makes appropriate a unified move by editors to tease the conceit of this naming taboo. Thus freed from a debate of little meaning, journalists could move on to discuss a terribly meaningful one: how to cover rape trials with sensitivity, balance, fairness, a concentration on fact over rumor.’

The name of the accuser in this case has been removed by Poynter Online editors. After doing a first read on the column, editors Julie Moos and Bill Mitchell met with a group of about 25 Poynter faculty and staff to discuss the issue: Under what circumstances should Poynter consider naming the accuser in this case?

“The discussion was not to seek consensus, but to inform our decision. Our conclusion: Based on what we know at this point, we believe the journalistic purpose to be achieved by naming the accuser is outweighed by the potential harm that could result from doing so. We gladly present conflicting views, as we did with this column by Geneva that was published last year. But we are not willing to step beyond publishing opinion and take the action of publishing the accuser’s name.

“This has created an unusual dilemma. Geneva is a valued friend of Poynter, a member of our National Advisory Board from 1993 to 2001 as well as the unpaid author of the weekly Journalism Junction column since November, 2002. Citing several competing obligations as well as her principled disagreement with Poynter Online editors, Geneva has informed us that this will be her final column for Poynter. Explaining her decision, she said: ‘There is little to recommend continuing to write the column for Poynter unless I can say what I believe.’

[NOTE: By the way, the accuser’s name in the Kobe Bryant case is Katelyn Kristine Faber. And I agree with what Overholser did. It was right for her to quit as a Poynter Online columnist].

Kudos to Geneva. In light of the fraudulent Dan Rather, it's hard to like news people these days. She did the right thing.

Overholser is just throwing another brick on the pile that crushed that young woman. She got a really raw deal but that was to be expected from a man who could afford $20 million or more in legal fees. Hopefully, there is a hell, with room for all who have done and continue to do violence to this woman.

>Geneva Says, 'I Quit'

Oh no. And she was
my favorite Da Vinci.
Will Mona quit next?!

I'm a bit confused here. Why is it OK to splash Kobe Bryant's name all over the press, but not the name of the woman who makes accusations against him?

Are we now saying, as a nation, that it is OK for people to start making scandalous accusations against others from the safety of anonymity? What's the next step? Claiming a First Amendment right to hide the source of forged documents?

6 posted on 09/20/2004 12:10:33 PM PDT by TwoWolves (The only kind of control the liberals don't want is self control.)

Ms. Overholser makes Dan Rather look like a partisan Republican.

I kept records from the impeachment wars, and after:

Those Of Us Who Oppose NRA Zealots Have Our Work Cut Out For Us - Geneva Overholser, May 29, 2000

Charleton Heston, Meet Joe Camel - Geneva Overholser, May 4, 1999

Bush's Tax Cut Is Un-American - Geneva Overholser, March 2, 2001

7 posted on 09/20/2004 12:24:08 PM PDT by an amused spectator (Memo Depot: where trusted news anchors shop)

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