Rick Casey Clarifies
Rick Casey, whom we caught rewriting a Washington Post column by Dan Morgan and presenting it as his own, has issued a "clarification" in his column today:
Clarification: I should have been clearer in attributing the facts in a column last week about U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla's administration of a political action committee. Although the column said the story was "detailed this week on the front page of The Washington Post," an e-mail from a reader felt I was presenting the work as my own. Another reader was so enthusiastic about the facts in the story that he praised my "investigative reporting."That's probably the best to be expected from a Comical columnist, but it doesn't really explain why he thought it was okay to lift entire phrases and slightly reword whole sentences. And it never credits Dan Morgan by name for the original investigative reporting. I do love that he admits using the Post article yet STILL getting facts wrong. Pitiful.The column was almost entirely based on The Washington Post story. I could have been more precise and apologize for any confusion.
The column contained two errors. One was to attribute to the PAC's founder, Dallas businessman Marcos Rodriguez, a quote that was actually given to the Post by Bonilla. The other was that the PAC, intended to support minority Republican candidates, gave $90,000 to the Republican parties of Maine, Delaware, Florida and Arkansas, not $10,000.
Editor Jeff Cohen, who recently suspended Mickey Herskowitz for recycling HIS OWN copy, doesn't exactly come off as Mr. Consistent in this, since ripping off someone else's work is not just "bad form" (as he called Herskowitz's transgression) but plagiarism.
Reader Representative James T. Campbell never answered my original email alerting the Comical to the problem, keeping his streak of never answering such an email alive and well. Seriously, would it have been so hard to respond with something along the lines of, "Thanks for writing us. We'll investigate this." Why have a reader representative if he's not going to act as a real ombudsman who works as a reader's advocate (not to mention defender of journalistic standards)? Oh wait, it's the Comical. Never mind.
More than ever, the Comical does need such an advocate for readers and standards of journalism. That paper has some real problems.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/14/04 08:18 | Houston | Technorati
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Ridiculous. What a *itty newspaper. It's funny, when I moved to Our Fair City 5 years ago, it took me all of 2 days to realize how much the Chronic sucked.
Posted by TP @ 09:22 on 04/14/04
I should have noted in my post that the "clarification" is at the BOTTOM of his regular column. The wording/placement of the "clarification" is about the most dismissive response the Comical could put together, short of ignoring the charges altogether. It's not at all consistent with their (over?)reaction to Herskowitz.
Posted by Kevin @ 09:46 on 04/14/04
I'm .500.
From what I can see, Campbell will only respond if the response puts the Comical in a positive light.
ObCasey: Has anyone else noticed a really hard right turn and much longer letters in the letters column of late?
Posted by Charles M @ 11:20 on 04/15/04
You've actually gotten a response from Campbell?!
You're kidding me! I've never heard of anyone who has! Would you mind sharing the details?
On the letters section, I have to admit I haven't taken a hard qualitative look at it, but I do recall seeing a few in the last few days that surprised me. Maybe ginning up conservative agitation and providing some outlet is Cohen's effort at generating buzz? Or his notion of balance?
I have to admit that I really don't get Jeff Cohen, and I had some hopes (based on Connelly's writings) that he would boost the paper.
Posted by Kevin @ 11:27 on 04/15/04
My original letter (11 Jul 03):
Mr Campbell:
While I've somewhat disconnected from the Chronicle for Iraq
coverage - I much prefer the British papers and the BBC - I still
skim the paper to see what you are reporting.
Is the Chronicle aware we are still in Iraq? Does it matter?
Does half a page toward the end of section A really do justice
to something that has cost 259 American and British lives, left
at least 1000 American troops wounded and cost the lives of an
unknown number of Iraqi civilians? Beyond the direct human cost,
where is the deep reporting on the apparent string of mis/partial
truths that led us to war?
Does the Chronicle really receive an insufficient number of letters
concerning Iraq, and I'll include the President's truthfulness, the
upcoming 9/11 Committee report and the like, to not print a single
letter?
I would appreciate a response. I think I deserve an answer as to
how "Houston's Leading Information Source" (to use an old advertising
slogan) is serving the Houston community in this matter.
He replied the same day to point out articles on the front page and inside.
He states "We are not going to let this story [Bush's veracity] drop" and notes they also get complaints they are over covering the story. He did not address my question re balance in the letters.
I replied thanking him for the response (as opposed to an autoresponder) and noted he didn't address my question.
Posted by Charles M @ 13:32 on 04/15/04
The other letter was asking what fact checking duties the Comical owed its readers in the letters column.
This was after they failed to print a letter of mine totally debunking a 9 column inch letter which praised Bush's job creation numbers and totally mangled the BLS statistics.
No reply to that one.
Posted by Charles M @ 13:36 on 04/15/04
Charles: Thanks for that info, and for the email. I wish we could reproduce it, but I won't do so without your permission. I would just say that Campbell's use of the term "deception" to describe the State of the Union speech is interesting to me. If you're a journalist trying to be fair, shouldn't you be more concerned with the veracity of the speech? Because deception implies intent -- which is a fact that's very difficult for any journalist to verify, so much so that it's nearly an editorial statement -- whereas facts can be checked and debunked.
I guess I'm still left thinking the reader rep/ombudsman should be a little more above the fray, and not engaged in editorializing.
It will surprise no regular reader here for me to say that I do think that editorial staff leans left and it seeps over into the news coverage. I think that the newspaper also has some serious problems journalistically that aren't related to ideology (regular readers also are well aware of that). While we may disagree on biases, I think many of us can agree on the journalistic shortcomings at the newspaper.
It should be better than it is. Much better.
Posted by Kevin @ 14:57 on 04/15/04
I share your opinion of Chron's journalistic failings. There was a saying that the "Chronicle knows how to but won't, the Post wants to but doesn't know how to." And, from what I can see the Chron part still holds.
However, I can't agree that the news staff leans left unless, and this is a big unless, you are referring to the local norm. I see the Chron on the order of Lieberman or McCain (You can infer from this that our politics differ a little).
I wrote a letter to the editor one time asking my subscription be cancelled and that I start receiving the liberal Chron I kept seeing mentioned in the Letters column. This one didn't get published.
Posted by Charles M @ 15:11 on 04/15/04
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