The calls and e-mails started pouring in within hours of the DNA report last Monday. The words differed, but the message was the same: When is The News & Observer going to ‘fess up that it got the Duke sexual assault story wrong? “How about a front-page apology to restore some of the damaged reputation your newspaper has caused for jumping to conclusions and assuming guilt!” one reader wrote.
I’ve had concerns about the coverage, too, which I’ve expressed in a previous column, and will elaborate on below.
But we need to recognize several things. One is that the story didn’t conclude with the disclosure last week, by lawyers for Duke lacrosse players, that the results of all 46 players tested didn’t link them to the alleged rape on March 13. Durham DA Mike Nifong is continuing the investigation.
Another is that The N&O didn’t confect this story. The paper was the first to report that DNA tests had been ordered, but Nifong instigated that action. Much of the coverage since has been about developments in the case — rallies and protests by residents, Nifong’s very public insistence that a crime occurred, the players’ lawyers’ equally vehement claims of innocence, Duke’s actions against the team and coach. In other words, reporting the news.
And the news has been difficult to report, because the sources of information have been stingy. After his initial outbursts, Nifong seized up and wouldn’t talk to reporters. He and the players’ lawyers discussed but didn’t release the DNA reports, the lawyers discussed but didn’t release party photos that supposedly support the players. The players, all 47 of them, won’t talk. Duke has been tight-lipped.
Much of the criticism of The N&O has been over the paper’s treatment of the lacrosse team — that they’ve been “tried in the newspaper.” Melanie Sill, the newspaper’s executive editor, makes the case that there are actually two stories here: the criminal investigation of an alleged sexual assault, and the alleged anti-social behavior of the lacrosse team. The rowdiness story was worth reporting in its own right, she said: “If there had been no rape charge and something else had brought this to the public’s attention — the rowdiness, the underage drinking, hiring a stripper — I think that would have been news.”
So, we read stories on previous misdemeanor charges against 15 current lacrosse players (March 28) and, last Sunday, the police records of players past and present over the last seven years. I agree that the backstory of the lacrosse team is relevant — Duke President Richard Brodhead accepted the lacrosse coach’s resignation and appointed a committee to investigate the “culture” of the team. The N&O got a jump on that with last Sunday’s story.
But, along with many readers, I had a problem with the headline on that story: “Team has swaggered for years.” That’s a subjective generalization that didn’t do justice to individual players and to nuances in the story that challenged the team’s negative reputation. A story the previous week had included, on an inside page, a poster showing the names and photos of all the players, which I also thought was inappropriate.
I agree as well with readers who complained that The N&O gave page-one display to the players’ rap sheets, but buried inside the criminal record of the accuser. That record — that she pleaded guilty in 2002 to stealing a car and trying to run over a police officer, among other things — was near the bottom of a story on page 14A of the April 7 paper.
Sill said the newspaper looked for the appropriate context to report the accuser’s record and the story — a Durham city manager’s report on the police investigation — was the first opportunity to do so. She noted that in reporting on crime, newspapers typically vet the record of the accused but not of the accuser. For me, the disparity in coverage did not compute.
The N&O to this point has not identified the accuser, in keeping with its policy of not disclosing names of reported victims of sexual assaults. A question the paper may need to contend with is whether to report her name if no charges are brought or if her allegations are disproved. Sill indicated that it would if circumstances warranted, although she emphasized she didn’t want to prejudge the outcome.
One factor that has contributed to readers’ perception of the coverage, I believe, has been its long half-life. The rape story has been on The N&O’s front page 16 of the last 20 days through Friday, and you have to wonder if each story merited that attention. One reason for the protracted coverage, of course, is that charges have yet to be filed — an unusually long pre-indictment investigation.
Bill Green, former ombudsman for The Washington Post, said he thought the volume and display of stories shaped perceptions of unfairness. “I think the press might want to ask itself some questions about the display of stories on the front page,” Green, a Durhamite who was a vice president at Duke under Terry Sanford, told me. “It’s a situation where the press can give a story legs when the story itself may not have that kind of staying power.”
But, he added, there is a lot of story still to be told.
And that’s the cautionary note that I’d offer to our friends who accuse The N&O of bias. Just as the newspaper shouldn’t rush to judgment of the lacrosse team before the facts are in, let’s not issue a verdict on The N&O’s coverage until more questions are answered. Was a crime committed? Will anyone be charged? (And, my own slightly off-topic question: why does Duke abide a 47-member sports team that has only one black player?)
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