The News & Observer’s public editor, Ted Vaden, deserves credit for responding promptly to my complaint about the column by Barry Saunders published in the N&O earlier this week. But I’m afraid the credit ends there. Ted addressed few of the specifics I brought up, and in fact exhibited some of the same shortcomings in critical thinking as did Barry. There must be something in the water at the N&O these days.

In any event, here’s Ted’s reply, in full and (naturally) annotated:

Thanks for including me in your circle of comment on this issue. I hold you in high regard as a thinker and writer whose ability greatly exceeds my own, so I respond with trepidation.

With that kind of start, I know I’m about to have smoke blown up my skirt. But I can’t complain — I opened my blast at Barry with a similar paragraph of lavish praise.

I have read through your analysis of Barry’s column, and I just don’t buy the notion that Barry has crossed a line of fair comment into bad journalism. Maybe he reaches in some areas - the nurse may be a valid target - but the idea of naming 28 defendants does strike me as a cattle roundup that really is a legal tactic - a legit target for criticism and, yes, lampooning.

Considering the scope of the Duke/Nifong scandal, 28 defendants actually seems like a modest number. (Remember, just among the faculty alone there were 88 professors who encouraged, condoned or actively participated in the harassment of the plaintiffs, whose only “crime” was to be on the lacrosse team.) Besides, Ted and Barry both demonstrate the same naiveté about the “cattle roundup.” Do they truly not understand that lawyers routinely name every possible defendant in the first draft of a lawsuit, especially those which involve a sprawling case with multiple plaintiffs? It’s telling that a mocking reference to the 28 defendants is the most specific thing either one of them has to say about the lawsuit. I wonder if they’ve actually read it?

I could see the Gearino rapier wit employed under different circumstances on similarly inflated claims. Ditto Barry’s jabs at “negligent infliction of emotional distress.” The legal hyperbole is all fair game.

“Similarly inflated claims”? Apparently, it is now a settled matter that the lawsuit is not to be taken seriously. As far as “legal hyperbole” goes, of course it’s fair game. I specifically said, in my complaint to Ted, that I didn’t seek to impair any columnist’s right to express opinion. I asked, as a paying subscriber and thus as someone interested in getting the best product for my money, for better editing — with the hopeful result being sharper, more effectively reasoned opinion. I want major-league stuff from the N&O. Not lowbrow yuks about the number of defendants and how the players’ “wittle feelings” were hurt. All Ted does here is make a vigorous defense of mediocrity.

Is it disingenuous to revive the old rowdiness charges against the lacrosse team? I think it’s valid to remind the community that their behavior before the incident, and during it for that matter, was not beyond reproach.

There are two problems with the endless reminders of the lacrosse team’s behavior. First, you’d think that a paper whose early coverage of the case was profoundly flawed — in part because it unhesitatingly bought into the unfounded assertions that the players were violent, assaultive thugs who’d gang-raped an innocent woman — would be more careful in its subsequent references to them. Second, when the players continue to be described as hooligans even after it’s been established that there was no rape and that a majority of the team has never been charged with alcohol-related offenses, much less assault, then those continued references seem to be an effort to suggest that the players brought their woes upon themselves.

I think it’s a red herring to compare the lacrosse team rowdiness record to that of the Duke community at large. It’s bad behavior, comparatively or not. But that can be overdone, and I hope Barry and the paper don’t keep raising that as a response to the legitimate concern that three lacrosse players were victims of injustice (for a while).

It’s breathtaking that Ted, in the space of a few dozen words, can assert (a) that it’s “valid” to keep reminding the community of the lacrosse players’ misbehavior, and (b) that it’s a “red herring” to ask whether that behavior was, in fact, actually any worse than anyone else’s at Duke. This willful refusal to provide context and detail confounds the hell out of me. Why doesn’t the N&O simply give the public the information, and let us decide how much significance to attach to it?

I think Barry certainly has a valid position and reflects the sentiment of a large portion of the community that the continuing wave of legal action - whether in the name of dollars or retributive justice — is a little wearying.

So the tone and direction of the news coverage is now determined by applause meter?

That’s the sentiment I hear from my non-newspaper acquaintances who don’t have a dog in this fight. I teach a class at Duke, and they were split 1/3-2/3 yesterday over whether Barry’s column was on target.

This is a perfect circle of flawed logic. The N&O keeps telling the public that the lacrosse players were hooligans, and then when two-thirds of Ted’s class — having been endlessly bombarded with that thought — agree with Barry’s column focused on their alleged hooliganism, that’s proof that the N&O is simply reflecting the thoughts of the community.

It’s hyperbole, yes. It’s overly simplistic. But I just don’t agree that it’s dishonest or unfair. I think the lawsuit was a valid target for a news columnist, and Barry is well equipped to take up the cudgel. So in that respect, I disagree that the editors fell down on the job.

Excuse me, but when something in the paper is both hyperbolic and simple-minded, it is by definition the very “bad journalism” that Ted denies in his second paragraph above. And of course the column was unfair. It dripped of contempt and scorn for the players, and was written only to make a mockery of them. Ted seems to confuse fairness with balance here. A news story ought to be both fair and balanced. A column, in contrast, isn’t required to have balance. It is, after all, a declaration of opinion. But a column ought to be fair in the sense that the columnist at least gave the other side a fair hearing before rendering his judgment. There was no evidence of that in Barry’s piece.

(P.S., I wouldn’t hang my hat on the Johnson/Taylor book. The N&O has submitted to them a list of errors for correction — I don’t know whether they have — the worst of which was getting the Public Editor’s name wrong!)

In other words, errors were spotted, complaints were made and the N&O is now frustrated because nothing’s being done about them? Hey, I understand the feeling.

Yesterday I posted a point-by-point rebuttal to a column by Barry Saunders published earlier this week in the News & Observer. Today I post a copy of my formal complaint about the column, which was filed with N&O public editor Ted Vaden, who represents the interests of readers to the paper’s management. Will there be a response? Stay tuned.

For the past eleven months, my relationship to the News & Observer has been that of a paid subscriber – and nothing else. As a consequence, where I once would have simply wandered into your office to chat informally, I now am reduced to sending this complaint via email. I just hope that whatever meager influence I once had as an N&O employee hasn’t evaporated entirely.

I thought Barry Saunders’ column on Tuesday was an embarrassment. On my web site today I deconstruct the column’s specifics, and as you’ll see Barry’s careless slap at the newest Duke lacrosse lawsuit was lazy and ill-informed. But Barry is paid to offer opinion, and I understand that opinion is neither right nor wrong. None of what follows here, then, should be construed as a call to prevent Barry from writing strongly worded columns, even those with which I would disagree.

Still, I’m asking you, in your capacity as the readers’ advocate within the paper, to address two things:

First, I’d like you to grapple with the parts of Barry’s column that are clear failures of context and logic. I’d also like you to address the fact that Barry pursues the “hooligan narrative” – which is to say, the idea that the lacrosse players were wildly out of control – even after that narrative has been put to rest by a preponderance of evidence that shows Duke students as a whole exhibit exactly the same behavior. When did the N&O start trafficking in crude stereotypes?

Second, I’d like some assurance that the N&O’s editing capability is up to snuff. Seeing Barry’s column go into print with no apparent challenge from an editor over context, logic or coherence can cause any reader to wonder what other stories suffer from a similar haphazard handling. I hope it’s not too much for a reader to ask that articles from all N&O writers – even those involved in the commentary side of the process – undergo a rigorous vetting.

As an aside, I’ll add that I wonder if the N&O actually grasps the important issue that lies at the heart of the Duke lacrosse lawsuit. A substantial number of Duke faculty members have implicitly declared that “academic freedom” gives them the unfettered privilege to trample anyone’s constitutionally protected right to a presumption of innocence (not to mention invade the lacrosse players’ privacy, harass them publicly, and encourage noisy demonstrations by activists who hold up signs in front of the players saying “Castrate”). The lawsuit, if heard in court (as I hope it will), could prove to be a historic showdown between the often-abused rights of professors and the often-ignored rights of students. This is beyond your sphere of influence, of course, which is why I’m copying this note to John Drescher. In any event, it would be nice to know that a smart story on this conflict is already in the works.

This letter to you will be posted on my site, and I’ll be happy to include your response there as well.

Let me start by saying that I’m fond of Barry, the News & Observer columnist with whom I worked for 14 years. I’ve long admired his writing touch, and envied his savoir faire (something I notably lack). But his column yesterday on the latest wrinkle in the Duke lacrosse case was bad. No, it was worse than that. It was lazy, uninformed and essentially illogical. Barry deserves better editing and handling than he’s getting at the N&O. If pushed to do more thoughtful work, a Pulitzer could be in his future. But a column like yesterday’s is only an embarrassment.

With some help from the book “Until Proven Innocent,” which stands as the most scrupulously researched examination of the disgraceful prosecution of three Duke University students on a rape allegation cooked up by an emotionally unbalanced stripper, let me explain the problems with his piece, which is reproduced virtually intact here:

It’s time to concede that the Duke lacrosse players, even the ones who came no closer than you or I to being charged in the discredited rape case, have indeed been damaged.

That means they may be justified in seeking damages from the city of Durham, Duke University, the 911 operator who took the mock distress call, the dude who built the house on Buchanan Boulevard where the non-rape occurred and the automaker who built the cars in which the two strippers came to the house.

The only tangential person not named in the latest lawsuit filed by 38 players was Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone on which presumably they called the escort service and ordered up a couple of hootchy-kootchy dancers.

I exaggerate, sure, but not by much. In all, the suit names 29 defendants, including the nurse who performed the rape test on Crystal Gail Mangum — the woman whose cry of “rape” has created the biggest money grab since the Gold Rush of ‘49.

Here’s where Barry’s indignation first starts to go off track. He clearly sees the nurse as just a continuation of the absurd list of potentially responsible parties (“the automaker who built the car …”), but that nurse -– a trainee, by the way — exaggerated Mangum’s claimed (but nonexistent) injuries so much that police investigators announced as fact that she’d been battered, bruised and violated, allegedly by the lacrosse players. Why shouldn’t the nurse be a defendant? And as for the rest of that sentence, perhaps Barry doesn’t know that just a few days after the alleged rape, Mangum told the security manager of the strip club where she worked that “I’m going to get paid by the white boys.” That was the “money grab.”

The lawsuit claims the plaintiffs have been aggrieved by the negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Say what? Oh, their wittle feelings have been hurt.

You have to have more than hurt feelings to win in court. Demonstrations against you on campus, ostracization by your fellow students, accusations that you’re stonewalling a criminal investigation, harassment at the hands of the Duke faculty, wanted posters featuring your photos scattered around the campus, threats of prosecution for aiding and abetting rape … yeah, those things might add up to emotional distress. Ya think?

Come to think of it, mine have, too. As a Durham resident, I should file suit against the lacrosse team because of the emotional distress various members of it have inflicted upon the city of Durham and, by extension, me.

A News & Observer story from 2006 reported that nearly one-third of the players on that year’s team had been charged with various offenses such as underage drinking, public urination, and open container violations.

Assuming that Barry refers to the same March 28, 2006 story that the book mentions, then “one-third” totals 15 people, four of whom were later found not guilty – meaning that in the three-year span covered by the N&O’s report, a total of 11 players were guilty of the minor excessive partying that we all did in college. Indeed, during that same three-year span, more than a thousand other, non-lacrosse Duke students were cited for “alcohol-related disciplinary violations,” the book reports. Furthermore, during that same 2005-06 academic year, strippers had been featured at 20 other parties staged by Duke students. The lacrosse players were hardly alone in their zeal for partying. If Barry was so emotionally distressed by such behavior that he’s considering a lawsuit, he’s got lots of defendants to choose from.

That doesn’t mean they or their indicted teammates raped someone, but it indicates a proclivity to flout the law. When daddykins is loaded, though, such rowdyism is dismissed as “boys being boys.”

Fewer than a dozen players at a notoriously hard-partying college are guilty of alcohol offenses over three years, and that “indicates a proclivity to flout the law”? Oh, please. That’s just laughable.

How many of our tax dollars went toward the police department’s investigation of citizens’ complaints against team members over the years?

Let’s call it a fraction of 1 percent of the ultimate bill for the whole scandalous prosecution. And by the way, most of the off-campus parties that brought citizen complaints didn’t involve lacrosse players.

A lawyer for the players contends they, uncharged though they are, suffered “grievous, lasting injuries” and suffered “a horrifying personal nightmare.”

I’ve got a grievous and lasting injury for ‘em. Right here. After that, I’d introduce them to Dwayne Dail, Darryl Hunt and Alan Gell, three North Carolina poor boys who combined spent decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

Y’all guys ought to be ashamed, because unless you wear your lacrosse jerseys to job interviews or on first dates, no one but family members and friends know who the heck you are.

This is where Barry goes completely off the track of logic and coherence. Yes, Dail, Hunt and Gell are victims of a justice system gone awry. They deserve compensation for their suffering in prison. But you know what? Unless they wear their prison stripes to job interviews or first dates, no one’s gonna know who the heck they are, either. Fortunately, the law doesn’t take into account the silly, frivolous assertion that future anonymity means there was no past damage. How does a sentence like that one of Barry’s even get into the paper? I worked at the N&O for 14 years. I know there are a lot of people with the word “editor” in their titles. Were they all off duty that day?

In the March issue of Men’s Health magazine, former head coach Mike Pressler is hailed as a martyr who lost his job for the sins of a corrupt legal system.

What a crock. From 1999 through March 2006, 41 players on Pressler-led teams were charged with various crimes.

I don’t know where this number comes from, but I’ll take it at face value. But without context, it’s useless. How many Duke basketball players were “charged with various crimes” in that same period? (And by “crimes,” I assume Barry means those same, low-grade drinking violations.) How about the other Duke teams? In fact, it would be nice to know what percentage of the student body as a whole was charged in that period. We might find out that the lacrosse team was better-behaved than the rest of the student body. Adding context to such a statistic is (or is supposed to be) a basic reflex of journalism. Again, any editors around?

The reverence expressed for him was laughable, as the writer described him announcing his resignation to protesting players “in measured, Churchillian tones. ‘Gentlemen,’ he began, ‘our darkest hour has arrived. The season has been canceled, and I am resigning.’ “

Cue the violins, the tears and the slow hand-clap.

Let me get this straight: If a magazine writer goes over the top with hyperbole when describing you, then you can’t complain about having been the victim of a witch hunt?

With such revisionism, with their previous reputation for boorishness swept away like a discarded candy-bar wrapper in a tornado, it’s no wonder the little darlings see themselves being owed recompense.

The only thing being swept away here is any claim Barry might make to thoughtful, incisive comment.