GREENSBORO, NC -- I thought I'd let this one go. I had for weeks, but in light of the
recent attention being paid to the bad practices at the News & Record and the publisher's incompetence, I think the community should be aware of this.
It begins: The News & Record prints a false allegation of criminal activity against me by a government authority
On February 28th, the News & Record published
a story by Mark Binker in which he reported Guilford County Commissioner Billy Yow accusing me of being an "extortionist." Yow's comments were in response to me posting online a picture of a racially tinged derogatory t-shirt inspired and endorsed by Billy Yow that I posted at billyyow.com, a domain I own. The shirt quoted Yow as saying, "Piss on the N.A.A.C.P." with a cartoon of a little boy, flanked by a confederate flag, doing just that.*
I never asked for anything from Yow. I never implied to him, his associates or anybody else that I wanted anything from Yow. It never even occurred to me that I might extract some recompense from Yow. It just did not happen.
A completely unfounded and utterly false accusation
Yet, there it was in print: "Extortionist," without any context or check against the facts: A false accusation of criminal behavior made by a government official against me.
It wasn't as if Yow was saying how little he thought of me or how loathsome he found me, he was making a specific charge of criminal conduct. An extortionist, like a murderer or a thief, is one who commits specific acts that are against the law. I had done no such thing.
For that falsehood to make it into print, one of two things had to happen, reporter Binker and his editors either tried to corroborate Yow's accusation and, not being able to, printed something they knew to be false or they did not bother to check it out and printed an accusation with no regard for its truthfulness. Either is a deplorable violation of the ethical standards of journalism.
I was not given a chance to respond
To make matters worse, I was not even given a chance to respond to the accusations. Isn't that the professional thing, the ethical thing? If someone accuses someone of something to a reporter, does the reporter not only have an obligation to see if it's true but to also give the target of the accusation a chance to defend himself?
I was not asked to respond. Had I been, I would have told the reporter the accusation is false and asked him not to print something he could not substantiate. Maybe that's why I wasn't asked to comment on the accusation, so there would be no obstacles to printing a false allegation.
The editors stonewall
I tried to discuss the matter with the reporter Mark Binker by email. He would not reply. After leaving the News & Record, Mark informed me:
I had been given an instruction by my direct supervisor, Margaret Banks, not to respond to your e-mail. That instruction was later reinforced by Teresa Prout, our city editor.
Banks would not respond herself. Prout responded by saying that the Yow quote was "accurate."
That's not the point, of course. It is the veracity of the quote that was the matter—whether or not it was true—not whether or not Yow said it. Prout's response was evasive.
The publisher defends the reporting as "standard operating procedure."
So how did an unfounded allegation of criminality by a government
official against a private citizen, to which I was not even given the
opportunity to respond, make its way into print? I attempted to find out
and called the publisher Robin Saul to request a meeting.
Saul said he would not meet with me, so we ended up having a conversation over the phone.
I tried to impress upon Saul the serious lapse in journalistic ethics of printing a false accusation of criminality. I tried to get him to explain how that happened. He did not want to provide me with any answers, saying "I know where you are going with this, you are going to put it on your blog."
I was caught off guard. I expressed my astonishment that Saul would not discuss the merits of my complaint. He said he was following, "Standard operating procedure." He said I could write a letter to the editor if I wanted and they might publish it.
An appeal to the new editor
Although it hadn't happened on his watch, I thought newly hired editor Jeff Gauger might recognize the seriousness of the matter and do something about it. I wrote him a letter, the old fashion in-the-mail kind, explained to him what happened, why it was wrong and asked that he print an apology.
Although
Gauger had written in his first blog post (in the comments) that "Our best approach is to practice transparency, explain our decisions and acknowledge our occasional stumbles" he did not explain or acknowledge. He ignored. I got no reply at all.
A fish rots from the head
So there you have it. I don't think I need to sum it up for you, but I will. The News & Record printed a quotation of an authority figure making a false claim that I am a criminal, with no substantiation, with no opportunity for me to reply and they refused at every level from reporter to editors to publisher to discuss it with me or even acknowledge the lapse in professional judgement.
At some point, there has to be somebody in the chain of command who can face these kinds of problems with "This a violation of journalism ethics that we will not tolerate" and formulate a proper response. It is the only way the N&R will ever restore its shattered reputation. One might expect that to be the role of an editor, but when he or she is incapable or unwilling, then the ultimate responsibility lies with the publisher. If the publisher is incapable of acknowledging, much less rectifying ethical transgressions, then he should go.
It's time. Greensboro deserves better.
* I designed and maintain the campaign website for the incumbent Yow was challenging. As confirmed by the N&R, I posted the picture on my own as a voter in the district in which Yow was running without the consent or knowledge of the any other persons.
