Other than
deleting inconvenient comments from his website, what does Greensboro Guardian editor Charles Davenport, Jr. do as editor?
Not fact checking.
In "
Mix politics and religion? You bet!" author Addison Riddleberger premises an opinion piece on what he says are quotes from America's founding fathers on the topic of religion and government. He cites no sources. That should be a red flag for a conscientious editor and, in this case, with good reason. The "quotations" are
fabrications and
gross distortions. Fake, in other words, but published with editor Davenport's stamp of approval.
Davenport has already established a cavalier attitude toward intellectual rigor at the Greensboro Guardian. The partisan faithful don't seem to mind and objective readers just shrug and shake our heads. This case is different though — the author of the piece is in tenth grade and Davenport does the youngster a great disservice by not assisting him in aligning his writing with the facts. It is going to lead to a rude awakening for Addison when he discovers that, in real life, people are not as accommodating of fabrications as they are in Davenport's insular echo chamber.
Davenport had a nice teaching opportunity and, instead of doing what any good editor would do for any author, regardless of age, and instead of the extra benefit of helping a fledgling writer, Davenport exploits the young man by allowing him to put himself forth with phony information for the sake of ... well, what, exactly? An ideologically pitch-perfect bit of make believe at a boy's expense.
