AJC "Sorry" In Several Ways
As regular readers know, I think my local paper sucks. Do a search of the posts using AJC and you can learn of my thoughts on the paper's sorry state.
In a recent post, I talked about the death of Richard Jewell who was a hero of the 1996 Summer Olympics here in Atlanta. He was afterwards vilified by national media and the local rag. The AJC never could, and still can't bring itself to admit a mistake:
"Jewell's death Wednesday 'is not a day to consider lawsuits, rather a day to pay respect,' said John Mellott, AJC publisher.
'Richard Jewell was a real hero, as we all came to learn,' Mellott said. 'The story of how Mr. Jewell moved from hero to suspect and back in the Olympic Park bombing investigation is one the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported fully, even as it defended itself in a libel case brought by him.'"
From the AJC today in a follow-up article to an initial report of Mr. Jewell's death yesterday.
The thing the AJC missed in its full reporting of the story was the fact that it made a big mistake. It was wrong from the start. I'm a lawyer, and to an extent I understand hiding behind the defense that it didn't do wrong maliciously, a defense to defamation of a "public figure," something Jewell wasn't until the AJC and other news organizations made him one.
The AJC owes Richard Jewell an apology, now posthumously. I'm not holding my breath waiting for one; the paper can't even bring itself to write an obituary of a local man, a hero as its publisher calls him. The obituary in the paper has an "AP" byline.
3 comments:
It seems like at the time, they (the local newspaper) were going for the sensationalist story. So maybe their initial reporting was harsh on Mr. Jewell. But then he was cleared. I don't know why they remained adversarial towards him. Faced with a lawsuit after things settled, the AJC was unwilling to admit that they were overzealous and going for the tabloid kind of story. That is my non-lawyer's, simplistic take on what went down. I'd be willing to wager that even now, the AJC's legal counsel is telling them not to ever admit they were at fault. Just a guess.
It sounds like the AJC is more concerned with what's legal than what's moral. Perhaps they thought an apology would weaken their legal case.
Richard Jewell certainly deserved better than he got.
When I worked at Burger King (a hundred years ago) we were told that if a customer slipped and fell or somehow else got injured in the restaurant not to say "I'm sorry" because that opened the owner up to a lawsuit.
I'm not saying I agree with it, just saying I agree with ThomasLB.
Sadly, the media made such a stink about Mr. Jewell being the bomber that when I first saw his name in the paper the other day that was my first thought - Oh, he was the Atlanta Olympic bomber. The media somehow didn't make as big a stink about it when he was cleared.
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