http://blogs.newsobserver.com/zane/attacking-mccainpalin

A good, even handed offering.

It almost seems as though he presents this issue as a way to distance himself from the behavior of Williams.

LOL!

I noticed that recently the Rev. William Barber—(who, btw, kept libelous commentary he knew to be false on his obsolete website for months after Roy Cooper declared the lacrosse players INNOCENT)—pulled away from the table long enough to make comments about the Bizzell story.

An opportunity to jump on any bandwagon involving “race” is the only thing that will divert him from what he enjoys most.

If this was still “Frank Daniels’ paper” he could do whatever he pleased however he pleased and often did. Orage answers to Sacramento. If he and/or John axed Linda Williams there would be hell to pay to ACLU and NAACP ….. at a time when McClatchy has survival issues far greater than a rogue middle manager with a hard-core racist rage.

Linda was a running buddy with Madame Sill and no doubt her personnel file is filled with plaudits from her like-minded cohort. For John to build a case against her would take years. Williams knows the race cards she is holding and how to play them.

I like both John Drescher and Orage Quarles and believe that they are good men.

Both have always conducted themselves very professionally.

I disagree with you on what both men need to do.

They need to cleanse the staff of trouble like Williams.

Employees like this create ill will and cause readers to doubt all news coverage there.

No self-serving news hack like Williams has the power to do much of anything she is not allowed to do.

She has to go.

“You don’t think Drescher, Barkin, Riley, and others are uncomfortable having to work alongside such an unprofessional hack who is also so openly bigoted? ”

When all this started, I was shocked and angry that this level of unprofessionalism and bias was permitted at the N&O. I still believe there had to be an atmosphere that enabled it, so that is at the foot of the N&O and likely predates the people you’ve mentioned. However, I must admit I feel a bit of empathy towards the people like Drescher and Orage Quarles. If I were in their situation, I don’t know that I would behave differently. I’d be afraid any corrective action would result in a public firestorm which I might not survive (regardless of the truth). It would be miserable.

I’ve enjoyed reading Drescher’s columns in the N&O and believe he strives for fairness but also a hardcharging press corps. I’ve worked with Mr. Quarles on a charitable function and he was always tremendously nice to me (and I’m not someone he’d need to be polite to if he didn’t want to; i.e., I think he’s a genuinely good man). They cannot do anything because Mrs. Williams is likely to raise a huge embarrassing stink. So life goes on, uncomfortable and likely unproductive.

In the end, I agree with what others have said. We all have our views, political, religious, etc. You can take a hardline stance on controversial subjects, but you’ll win over more fencesitters if you make your case with respect and fairness. I don’t believe Ms. Williams subscribes to that theory.

I’ve come to this a bit late.

So Linda Williams has openly admitted that she was the one who sent out the “instructive” memo the N&O staff?

Remember that this is the same person who was keeping score on the media coverage regarding the brutal murder of UNC-CH student body president Eve Carson before she had even been buried.

Every inch of this woman’s existence is always about “race”.

I’m so sick of people like this……which is why I send their bile right back to them to illustrate how ridiculous they are.

No one like this Williams person should be allowed to handle serious news. The public deserves better.

And if Orage Quarles doesn’t drop this dead weight, he’s doing everyone a disservice.

She is diabolical.

Just recall for a moment how she handled the Duke lacrosse coverage.

You don’t think Drescher, Barkin, Riley, and others are uncomfortable having to work alongside such an unprofessional hack who is also so openly bigoted?

http://blogsarchive.newsobserver.com/editor/index.php?title=march_25_interview&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
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Thursday, October 5, 2006

March 25 interview

Our March 25 article that included an interview with the woman who accused Duke lacrosse players of rape has been the subject of questions and speculation on blog posts. There is a mistaken assumption that the N&O conducted an extensive interview with the woman and deliberately withheld a substantial portion of the interview.

Those assumptions are false.

The reporter’s interview with the woman was brief, an encounter that lasted a few minutes outside the woman’s parents’ home in Durham. Only two things the woman said at that time did not make publication. She provided a description of the then-unidentified second woman who had also been hired to dance at the lacrosse team party. She also offered an opinion about the other woman’s actions that night. The latter was clearly an opinion, offered without any substantiation. Omitting from published news articles unsubstantiated opinions is a standard, normal part of the journalistic process. The description of the second woman proved to be accurate when Kim Roberts exposed herself at a later date. That description was withheld in March, not because of doubts about its accuracy, but because it was deemed irrelevant since we had no other information to tell readers about the second woman.

The decision made prior to the March interview to limit it to the information in the police report was the correct decision and I stand by it. Our purpose was to hear from the woman in her own words the accusation she made to the police. We also wanted to know if she would say anything that contradict the police report. In the brief interview, she repeated the information we knew to be the gist of the police report that we had access to at that time.

The fairness issue we discussed was that we would not allow her to use the interview for unlimited comments about the men she accused. That would have been the governing decision in any situation where we were interviewing a subject about formal charges made against another person and that other person is not immediately available to respond.

(snip)

Posted at 06:47 pm by Linda Williams in The Editor’s Blog, Today’s news, N&O coverage of Duke lacrosse case The Editors’ Blog
128 comments | Permalink
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Here’s a link to the article in question

Dancer gives details of ordeal
News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC)
News A1
Samiha Khanna
Anne Blythe Staff Writers

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=110949AF2BB0FF60&p_docnum=9&s_dlid=DL0108091612492318114&s_ecproduct=SUB-FREE&s_ecprodtype=INSTANT&s_trackval=&s_siteloc=&s_referrer=&s_subterm=Subscription%20until%3A%2012%2F14%2F2015%2011%3A59%20PM&s_subexpires=12%2F14%2F2015%2011%3A59%20PM&s_username=FreeAccess&s_accountid=AC0107030117170502657&s_upgradeable=no
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Read the comments from the Editor’ blog. The short form is that rape hoaxer Crystal Mangum also accused Kim Roberts/Pittman of stealing her stuff including a substantial amount of cash. All Mangum’s wild, inflammatory and unsubstantiated accusations about the Duke lacrosse team made it into the paper unfiltered, but the N&O suppressed an accusation that might have cast doubt on the two sister strippers appearance of solidarity. Information that didn’t fit the story they wanted to tell was left out. And Williams defends it.