Duke lacrosse saga.
Kirby, John L. ; Flowers, Christine ; Fredericks, Bob 等
I want to congratulate Rachel Smolkin on her cover story in the
August/September issue of AJR. I've been reading the magazine for a
long time, and in my opinion "Justice Delayed" is the single
best article ever published in the magazine. It should be required
reading for everyone in the media world.
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JOHN L. KIRBY
Portales, New Mexico
As a lawyer who also writes an occasional op-ed column for my local
newspaper, I was impressed and gratified by Rachel Smolkin's
masterful analysis of the media's many failures in the Duke case.
It seemed as if every journalist became a mouthpiece for the
prosecution, with particularly egregious examples found in papers that
normally trumpet the importance of due process. In fact, the New York
Times, among others, seemed to want to give greater constitutional
protections to Jose Padilla than to three young lacrosse players.
Ultimately, everyone bears responsibility for this grave
miscarriage of justice, from Mike Nifong and his prosecutorial
juggernaut to a lying accuser to the jaded and opportunistic
multicultural mafia on the Duke faculty. But it is the media's
dereliction of duty that troubles me most. Prosecutors can be disbarred,
perjurers prosecuted and academics fired. But renegade journalists wrap
themselves in the First Amendment far too often as an excuse for shoddy
performance. And we let them. It would be nice if the same people who
crucified the media for giving President Bush a free pass on Iraq would
have demanded the same accountability on behalf of three innocent
lacrosse players.
CHRISTINE FLOWERS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Rachel Smolkin did an outstanding job analyzing the good, bad and
outrageous coverage of the Duke lacrosse fiasco. My cop reporter
instincts told me from the start there was much that was fishy about the
story. I followed the coverage intently in print and online as the
sordid mess unfolded and was astonished at how many putatively objective
journalists were so quick to swallow an agenda-driven party line. The
episode should be a case study for J-school students, and Smolkin's
article should lead the syllabus.
BOB FREDERICKS
Local news editor
Journal News / LoHud.com
White Plains, New York
What an excellent, comprehensive review of this sorry tale. Daniel
Okrent's comment about the charges fitting into "preconceived
notions of too many in the press" sums it up. I don't blame
you for avoiding the rat's nest of political ideology in your
summary, but it is inescapable that the case illustrates the cultural
prejudices brought to journalism on race and gender issues by the sorts
of folks who seem to predominate in editorial boardrooms. I don't
think the ordinary consumers of journalism believed much of mainstream
reporting on these issues even before the Duke case; the
"liberal" stereotypes conflicted too greatly with the reality
they experienced daily. People in the profession should stop being in
denial about this problem.
MARK RICHARD
Columbus, Ohio
Many thanks for the fine piece about journalistic missteps in
coverage of the Duke "rape" case. One of the aspects of the
case at which you and others hint but which is never explicitly
addressed is that Duke is in the South. And there are those Americans
who believe Southerners are almost genetically different--stupider, more
violent, racist and inbred--than citizens of any other quadrant of the
country.
Amadou Diallo, Rodney King, regional black officials and decades of
racial progress notwithstanding, the American South is still considered
by too many people (mostly those ignorant of the area) to be the seat of
all the most heinous recent racial crimes in the U.S. And certainly the
Duke case was initially played as poor black victim vs. elite white
Southern university town. Never mind that the three young men (falsely)
charged came from other parts of the country. So much of the rest of the
country is ignorant of and oblivious to my region, until some
satisfying, stereotypical and sometimes ill-informed story like the Duke
case rears its head.
MARY TILLOTSON
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Overall, your piece on the Duke case was good, and I think that you
really did well on keeping the story straight, which is difficult to do
with a piece that is as complicated as this one. There is one thing you
did leave out, and I think it was important: That was the role of the
Internet, and especially the blogs. For example, KC Johnson was able to
pursue this one via his own blog--which you acknowledged. There were
others of us blogging as well, and we reached a number of people. I
think that the rise of the blogs here was significant and provides an
interesting challenge to the mainstream media.
WILLIAM L. ANDERSON
Associate professor of economics
Frostburg State University
Frostburg, Maryland
I was surprised your article didn't make anything of what now
seems to have been the rush to judgment by the Duke administration,
including its respected president, Richard Brodhead. The vigor with
which Brodhead suspended the team and dismissed the coach certainly
reinforced the perception among the media that the case had merit. And
while I agree entirely with your critique of the media, I think Duke and
Brodhead have gotten off very lightly in subsequent coverage.
JOSHUA MILLS
Professor of journalism
Baruch College / CUNY
New York, New York