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The Editors' Blog
Top editors answer questions and talk about The N&O's print and online news reporting. Contributors are John Drescher, executive editor, and senior editors Dan Barkin, Steve Riley and Linda Williams. Email John with questions or suggestions.
The Daniels case four years later
Submitted by danbarkin on 09/23/2008 - 06:33
When Erick Daniels was set free by Judge Orlando Hudson Friday, I thought about the phone call I got one Sunday morning nearly four years ago. Linda Williams, one of my fellow senior editors, was calling from out of town.
I was at home in Clayton reading the Sunday papers and looking forward to an uneventful day of watching football and raking leaves.
Linda had just gotten word that one of our reporters, Demorris Lee, had been arrested and could I see about getting him out of the Wake lockup. Arrested? For what? Demorris was one of the most solid citizens in the newsroom.
Here was what landed Demorris in the back of a police cruiser. He had been working on the Erick Daniels story, trying to determine whether the Durham teenager had been wrongly convicted of being one of the bandits who entered the home of Ruth A. Brown and robbed her at gunpoint.
Brown, a property room technician with the Durham Police Department, identified the 14-year-old Daniels as one of the perps in a 2001 trial, and he was sent away for 10 years. There were lots of questions about the case - Daniels claimed he was innocent -- and Lee began writing about it in 2001. There were things that didn't add up.
In the course of his reporting, he placed several calls to Brown to talk to her about the case, leaving messages on her answering machine. That's part of the reporting process, getting all sides of a story.
In response, Brown went to a Durham magistrate and filed a harrassment complaint against Lee. The magistrate, amazingly enough, signed an arrest warrant. And, presto, Demorris was busted.
So that Sunday morning, after I got off the phone with Linda, I called the executive editor, at the time Melanie Sill, and we both converged on downtown Raleigh to see what we could do about springing Demorris. Fortunately, by the time we got there, he had been released without bail on a promise to appear for a court hearing in Durham.
Of course, by Sunday afternoon, it was clear that this case against Demorris was going exactly nowhere. One of reporters, who was writing a story on the arrest, called Judge Hudson for comment, since he's the one who appointed the magistrate who thought putting Demorris in the slammer was a good idea. Judge Hudson allowed that in his experience, Demorris was an excellent reporter.
The prosecutor, Jim Hardin at the time, got the charge tossed out, and Hudson put the word out to the magistrates that in the future, if someone wanted to put a reporter behind bars for doing things in the normal course of his or her job, like calling someone for a comment, could they please, please check with a supervisor first.
Demorris, incidentally, is a reporter now at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.
About the blogger
Dan Barkin, senior editor/online, is a veteran of more than three decades in journalism and came to the N&O in 1996 as business editor. He holds a bachelor's in business administration from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and a master's in journalism from the University of Maryland. He and his wife live in Clayton with their two cats. Want to post a comment?
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Comments
Tyson's oleaginous minstrel show
Fri, 09/26/2008 - 11:24 — Debrahhttp://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2008/09/words-to-stand-by.html
And before the N&O solicits more retro and thoroughly embarrassing opinions from one Timothy Tyson, I want everyone to follow the link above.
Sit back and listen to each one of those short audio clips.
If they don't make you sick to your stomach, then you're not human.
Think about what those self-serving exhibitions did to assist in the Lacrosse Hoax. A grown adult deliberately seeking to damage young students---with no proof of the assertions made!
That same year, N&O editors commissioned this pathetic charlatan Tyson to do a big exposé on the Wilmington Riots of 1898.
The embellished narrative was designed to keep the "race issue" alive and well.
This would somehow, in the minds of professional race-hustlers, justify railroading three young men in that year of 2006.
The paper was a 24/7 feeding frenzy.
A few N&O editors were desperate to make this their big chance to bring back the 19th and early 20th centuries. A very lucrative way of life for many.
Timothy Tyson has a little film coming out in 2009 whose screenplay was written by Jeb Stuart, a now washed-up guy who has had some success.
However, the fact that he would touch the Tyson project is further proof that his cinema future is in his past.
We will be watching for both sides to be printed about Tyson on this. Not a glowing redux of "To Kill A Mockingbird".
Thus far, the N&O has only allowed the public a view of this self-righteous mess of a man sopping the gravy from his archaic bowl of Tobacco Road fairy tales.
An excerpt from "Until Proven Innocent"
Thu, 09/25/2008 - 23:21 — DebrahFrom the book written by Stuart Taylor and the incomparable Professor KC Johnson--seen below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMmK9FJGuhg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKl5Oyushls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdnuaNF5dxI&feature=related
This excerpt provides some details of how personal biases helped perpetrate the Lacrosse Hoax:
***********************************
....Samiha Khanna pgs 65-67 along with her editor Linda Williams
When the police and Nifong demonized the lacrosse players and canonized the "victim," the media were happy to provide unskeptical coverage, as The Herald-Sun did in its March 25 front-pager quoting Corporal Addison. And when an opportunity presented itself for journalists to do their own demonizing and canonizing, they seized it with relish.
Among local papers, The Herald-Sun, with far more Durham circulation than any other newspaper (about 45,000 in spring 2006, but falling fast), was incomparably biased in the more than three hundred articles and twenty unsigned editorials it churned out in 2006, savaging the lacrosse players and downplaying or omitting altogether the ever-growing evidence of innocence.
But The News Observer, with daily circulation of almost 180,000, including 10,000 in Durham County, was just as bad in its early coverage.
Among the most journalistically irresponsible articles of the entire case was The N& 0 's five-column, front-page article on March 25, which set a standard soon to be followed by The New York Times and other national news organs.
The headline: "Dancer Gives Details of Ordeal." The word "alleged" was conspicuously absent. The subhead cited "A Night of Racial Slurs, Growing Fear, and, Finally, Sexual Violence." No "alleged" there either.
The rest of the article was also studded with phrases pervasively slanted to imply guilty lacrosse players and a virtuous accuser: the authorities' "vowing to crack the team's wall of solidarity"; the "victim" — the article always described Mangum as the victim—"struggling not to cry"; her father's concern that "someone hurt his baby"; her two children and "full class load at N.C. Central University."
Then there were neighbors' complaints of a long-running Animal House scene with "drunken antics and loud music"— quotes that were slyly unspecific on whether the worst antics were at the lacrosse house or (as police reports showed) the ten or so other Duke party houses nearby.
The article concluded by portraying the chairman of Duke's Academic Council, law professor Paul Haagen, as hinting he thought the players guilty. The story said that Haagen cited studies showing "that violence against women is more prevalent among male athletes than among male students in general," and singling out "helmet sports," such as football, hockey and lacrosse, for particular notice.
The concluding quote: "These are sports of violence. This is clearly a concern." Yet, as Haagen recalled later, reporter Samiha Khanna took the quotes wildly out of context: he had grave doubts about Mangum's story, and Khanna spent most of her interview with him fishing for negative quotes about the players at a faculty meeting that day.
Billed as an interview with the accuser, the article was studded with falsehoods, all damning to the lacrosse players. The piece stressed the "victim's" claim that the players were "barking racial slurs" during the dance so aggressively as to drive both her and Kim Roberts to tears.
This claim was contradicted by Roberts and everyone else who attended the party.It claimed that the accuser had reported the rape to police only after her father had visited her at Duke Hospital. This assertion was contradicted by every relevant police report and (later) the father himself.
Samiha Khanna and her editor, Linda Williams (the highest-ranking African-American woman on the paper's news staff ), also chose to omit Mangum's statement during the "interview" that Roberts, too, had been raped. Nor did the reporter dig up such evidence as the accuser's claim that Roberts had been an accomplice in the rape.
Such discordant notes would have complicated the morality tale that Khanna and Williams so clearly wanted to tell, a tale of virtuous black women brutalized by vicious white men.
Williams later justified the omission of Mangum's comments about Roberts on legal grounds: "If we had printed that utterance [about Roberts] —an admitted speculation without the slightest foundation to suggest the possibility of truth—it would have been a conscious act of libel."
The gist: Printing Mangum's utterances about the lacrosse players was great; printing her utterances about a fellow black dancer would be libel.
The News- Observer also allowed the "victim" to hurl her charges from behind a veil of anonymity, as virtually all news organs do in all rape cases, even when publicly available evidence shows that the rape claim is a hoax.
The newspaper—once again omitting the word "alleged"— explained that its policy was "not to identify the victims of sex crimes."
Such anonymity is never extended to men accused of rape, even when it is clear that they are victims of malicious lies by false accusers, nor is it extended to the alleged victims of virtually any non-sex crime.
Such policies invert the once-cherished constitutional presumption of innocence, but they have become so routine as to seem unremarkable.
(Hat tip to Baldo)
Re: Williams' memo. We
Thu, 09/25/2008 - 06:24 — Anonymous (not verified)Re: Williams' memo. We understand that even your Public Editor (who is now part-time) will not touch this story. No matter. Today, with more and more people reading blogs and emailing information to those who don't, you no longer control the story. When you question each other as to why your jobs are being cut, you may look to the Williams' memo and what it represents for your answer. Readers no longer trust your newspaper to be objective in its reporting. You've lost trust. You value agenda over accuracy.
Not long ago,Williams and Khan "tinkered" with a local prostitute's story to keep her on message in the Lacrosse case. Her ever evolving storyline did not help her credibility, so Williams and Khan edited her wild accusation that the other stripper had also been raped to keep their "victim's" story clean. At this point the second stripper was truthfully calling the entire fabrication a "crock." A full and accurate accounting of Crystal's newest tale would have made it much more difficult for Nifong to "flip" her: Kim would have either had to lie that she was raped too and bring on those attending complications...or the public would have known RIGHT THEN...that Crystal was the stunning , unabashed liar she is. Williams and Khan were so emotionally blinded by their own biases (calling Crystal a "victim" over and over) that they willingly aided and abetted a Hoax.
But that was far from the worst of it. Someone at the N&O actually put these innocent kids at risk.
Did Williams authorize running the Wanted Poster ?(without the" discussion we should have had", said Sill) With an ARMED racist hate group descending on Durham, intent on interviewing the Team during exam week ...when they could not leave... the N&O provided a photo guide to the players identities. Who approved that recklessness and why? What public need for information did that serve?
WE'd love to have seen the "memos" from those days!
Now, Williams is setting the guidelines for how to cover the political reporting. We get it. Reporters will write from the viewpoint to please the boss. She states plainly what she wants. while denigrating a candidate's child.
As Williams herself said when complaining about the attention given to murdered Eve Carson, we can get opinions and gossip at the barbershops and hair salons. We do not need to subscribe and PAY for it. She has unwittingly written the N&O's obituary. Those pink slips should come clipped to the slanted articles and biased coverage wherein you broke faith with your reader.
I think it was wrong to
Wed, 09/24/2008 - 10:40 — Anonymous (not verified)I think it was wrong to condemn him on the spot without enough evidence. But I am glad he is free.
Malpracticing magistrates and editors
Tue, 09/23/2008 - 15:32 — fredwombleI would like to echo Debrah's statements. This is an interesting twist on the Daniels story and worthy of coverage here. Nice piece and legitimate issue, and well put. But in the context of the larger story - an executive who oversees reporters and content in the N&O displaying hateful and obvious partisan politics - why should your postings or those by other N&O staff be given any shred of credibility in instances such as this?
The N&O continues to ignore any questions about Linda Williams' unprofessional, slanted excuse for journalism as reported by former N&O columnist Dan Gearino. Yes, we should question the Daniels story and any instances of injustice -- think Dwayne Dail, Darryl Hunt, etc. When a media outlet is partly responsible (Duke lacrosse), that should be covered as well. And when an executive editor demonstrates an inability to take very obvious political bias out of her communications to the people she manages, that should be addressed. That the media fails to police itself helps explain why middle of the road Americans are running away from the mainstream press (esp print media) in droves. Ted Vaden has yet to reply to a simple inquiry as to the handling of the Williams issue. Are you all simply hoping this will go away?
As stated, the backstory to Demorris Lee's coverage of this story years ago makes for an interesting read. But until the N&O cleans its own house, I'm not sure you have much room to criticize others.
http://gearino.com/?p=340
Current news coverage
Tue, 09/23/2008 - 15:06 — DebrahDan,
Please make sure that someone inside the editors' office gives us the details about the story by Thomasi McDonald on the violence at Wakefield High School.
One perpetrator is a 17 year-old freshman--(how is that even possible?)
Why is this guy even allowed among regular students?
Is this latest attack which critically injured the victim so badly that he will require reconstructive surgery the result of more gang violence?
The public should be provided the specifics.
The victim? Who is this boy?
Specifics, please.
What Reade Seligman said
Tue, 09/23/2008 - 13:45 — wabbott"If it is possible for law enforcement officials to systematically railroad us with no evidence whatsoever, it is frightening to think what they could do to those who do not to have the resources to defend themselves."
So spoke Reade Seligman after he and two of his teammates were found to have been Framed by the DPD and Mike Nifong. Erick Daniels and Frankie Washington too were Framed, we now find out.
My question to you, Dan, and to your colleagues in the North Carolina media, is this: when are you all going to put pressure on the criminals? The criminals in the DPD and the prosecutors office who can with impunity put innocent people in jail and not suffer consequences.
Walter Abbott
Magistrates should be watched and newspaper editors should be...
Tue, 09/23/2008 - 09:11 — Debrah