http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/21/rs.01.html
KURTZ: Well, I know who I find funnier, but O'Reilly was a good sport. Stick around for the second half hour of RELIABLE SOURCES. A black accuser, three white lacrosse players -- did news organizations fan the racial flames at Duke University?
And a free speech fight. A conservative radio station fights back against liberal bloggers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES.
The Duke rape case which sparked such a media frenzy last spring when a black woman made allegations against three white lacrosse players has been slowly collapsing. The accuser changed her story so many times that the rape charges were dropped but sexual assault charges remained.
Prosecutor Mike Nifong bowed out of the case, turning it over to North Carolina's attorney general. But the media's role in this case remains controversial, as does that of the woman whose identity is being protected by news organizations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASH MICHAELS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "THE CAROLINIAN": Here you had the perfect storm of a crime story. The steps over there, you couldn't breathe on those steps. There was a camera here from every part of the country because it was a good story.
GAIL DINES, SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR< WHEELOCK COLLEGE: I think this woman has been hung out to dry by the media. I think questions about her morality, her emotional stability, her psychological stability, which is what happens to women in rape cases, and especially to women of color...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: Joining us now from Boston, Callie Crossley, media commentator and panelist on WGBH's "Beat the Press." And in Toledo, Ohio, Christine Brennan, sports contributor for "USA Today" and a contributor to ABC News.
Christine Brennan, when I look back on the coverage, particularly those first few months, it just looks to me like an absolutely awful performance by the media, pumping this into a big national melodrama.
Would you argue with that?
CHRISTINE BRENNAN, "USA TODAY": I'd agree with you, Howie, for sure on that. I think what we saw was the perfect storm for our media in 2006, in this 21st century, the sense that you've got all of these, what, 300 channels now out there, all this time to fill, 24/7, the sound bite rules, the quick hit, make it very simple for the viewer, try to keep that viewer for a few more minutes, fill the time as best you can. Really, an awful performance, an embarrassing time, I think, for journalism. I feel good personally about what I did on the story, Howie. I feel good about some of the mainstream coverage. But even those of us in the so-called mainstream I think went way too far and forgot the idea of restraint in journalism.
What do we know? When did we know? How did we learn it? Instead, for that ratings grab, for that hope of getting attention, keeping ratings, keeping circulation, I think some people lost their minds in this story.
KURTZ: Some people lost their minds.
snip
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_5058296
Ann Coulter: In Duke case, the Times, police have no clothes
Article Launched: 01/21/2007 08:58:30 PM PST
STUART Taylor Jr., the liberal but brilliant legal reporter for the National Journal, described The New York Times' coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape case as "\orse, perhaps, than the other recent Times embarrassments." For a newspaper that carries Maureen Dowd's column, that's saying something.
As the Times' most loyal reader, this came as welcome news. I had briefly suspected the Times was engaging in fair reporting of the alleged rape case at Duke University. Taylor's article documenting the Times' massive misrepresentations restored order and coherence to my world.
The first part of the story - the lie part - was angrily reported in the Times. But as the accuser's story began to unravel, the Times gave only a selective account of the facts, using its famed lie-by-omission technique.
Among the many gigantic omissions from the Times' pretend-balanced article ("Files From Duke Rape Case Give Details but No Answers") is the fact that the only remaining particulars about the case that are not completely exculpatory come from a memo by Sgt. Mark Gottlieb - written four months after the alleged incident.
snip