Trend towards mean-spirited media reporting

Since the inglorious days of the Duke Lacrosse party of March 2006 and its aftermath, it seems to me that the media has adopted and honed to perfection the art of cruel, inhumane, and malicious reporting. Without doubt, the Duke case provided plenty of fodder for the media-types upon which to cut its teeth, especially by going after former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. In kowtowing to the Carpetbagger Jihadist agenda to seek-destroy-annihilate anyone on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case, the media, with bloodlust relish, crucified Mike Nifong at every turn. No stone was left unturned when it came to Mr. Nifong, and truth, relevance, and objectivity presented no limitations. The worst example of a libelous attack against Mr. Nifong was by MSNBC senior legal analyst Susan F. Filan, who lied in an article by stating that Mr. Nifong asked his son to attend his hearing in an attempt to garner pity and sympathy. Then, based upon the falsehood that she had manufactured, she went to task attacking Mr. Nifong’s character. The truth of the matter is the opposite of the media-reality created by the Nifong detractor. Mr. Nifong specifically asked his son not to attend his hearing, but his son insisted upon showing support for his unjustly targeted father and was present at the North Carolina State Bar hearing; which was more a resemblance of a kangaroo court.

As stated earlier, everyone on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case was fair game for the media headhunters. Brian Meehan, the lab director whose company provided DNA results for the prosecution, was ridiculed by the media after he was unjustly axed from the company he helped establish. Duke Lacrosse case investigator Linwood Wilson’s personal bickering with his wife was dredged across the headlines… a perfect example of mountain making out of molehills. Vying for the cruelest coverage of all, was the way the news portrayed incidents involving the Duke Lacrosse victim and accuser Crystal Mangum. A litany of examples are on hand, with the most recent being the Reginald Daye autopsy report. Although the media has been alerted to the criminally fraudulent and bogus April 14, 2011 Examination of Autopsy Report, it has shown no curiosity as to how or why it differed from the Investigative Report of Death from April 13th. The media was quick to announce that the autopsy report showed injury to “six major organs”… the only problem is that the media relied upon the muscle called the diaphragm to be re-classified as an organ, which it is not. Furthermore, the report of the 13th , which is the far more reliable and accurate of the two, acknowledged only the splenic flexure of the colon as sustaining any stab related injury and receiving any attention during emergency surgery on Daye. ABC-11 television news was also quick to announce that Ms. Mangum stabbed Daye multiple times (seven) which was disproved by both reports. The media is at the ready to help the state keep concealed the truth behind Reginald Daye’s death from a stab wound… trauma from he most assuredly should have fully recovered.

Another gold mine source for the media has been provided by the NCAA’s investigation of the University of North Carolina’s football program. The self anointed organization headquartered in Indiana has as its objective to create athletic-academic crises in order to justify its relevance and the seven figure annual incomes of its top tiered executives. It pretends to place a premium on academic excellence while policing collegiate sports. Using a heavy hand it smashes the opportunities of many athletes to showcase their talents by arbitrarily handing out suspensions, fines, and banishments… usually for the alleged offense of accepting “gifts.” One UNC football player was deemed to have received a fifty dollar gift and the NCAA slapped him with a one game suspension. It is so ironic that the avaricious NCAA organization with it overstaffed and overpaid workforce is so bent on depriving a few athletes from underprivileged and disenfranchised origins from making a few bucks… this, while the NCAA is raking in the dinero hand over fist. Marvin Austin and Michael McAdoo were but a few of the students athletes caught up in the media storm, with McAdoo being cited for receiving “improper academic help” from a tutor. Although he received an F grade in the class, the NCAA tacked on an additional penalty… permanent ineligibility to play college football. The NCAA actions in this case, as in many others too numerous to recount, are examples of excesses in authority with draconian rulings that are arbitrary and capricious.

The media has been especially hard on the fired coach Butch Davis and one of his assistants John Blake. It seems that Blake had a relationship with a football agent of which the NCAA did not approve. Talk about piling on… Blake was unmercifully hammered in media. The News & Observer led the media charge against McAdoo’s professor, Julius Nyang’oro, who was forced to step down from his post as the chair of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. His alleged culpability was not informing the Dean about a hiring decision he made of a qualified instructor who happened to work as a sports agent.

The main problem at UNC is that its chancellor, Holden Thorp, is shell-shocked. The NCAA really did a number on him, as every miniscule perceived infraction that is connected with UNC college sports is immediately reported to the NCAA. It is pitiful the amount of power the NCAA has over Mr. Thorp and college sports in general. The universities and colleges should unite and force the abolishment of the NCAA which is nothing more than a parasite that is drunk with power and is running rough-shod over student athletes and college administrators.

The News & Observer sports columnist Luke DeCock wrote a truly bizarre article in the September 6, 2011 paper titled, “Withers made bad call with game ball.” Evidently, it’s not enough to just win the football game… now what you do with the game ball is what really counts? DeCock accused UNC football coach Everett Withers of “calling attention to the Tar Heels’ sullied past instead of their new future.” What does he think his article did? First, I, although not an avid sports follower, was unaware that the game ball was given to former coach Butch Davis… until I read DeCock’s column. Second, so what? Big Deal. It is evident that former coach Davis was largely responsible for recruiting many of the team’s members and helping them to develop into a force capable of defeating James Madison by the score of 42-10. The players naturally had affection towards the former coach and Davis was a friend of current coach Withers. So why not give him a game ball that the coach and players felt he deserved? Certainly such an action was not meant to embarrass an overly sensitive chancellor or serve as a detraction. More ink was given to the story about a game ball given by Withers to Davis than to the ponzi scheme which snared North Carolina State University Debbie Yow’s new basketball coach. Somehow, I do not think The News & Observer has its priorities straight.

Finally, there’s The News & Observer’s three part investigative series by J. Andrew Curliss which does a hatchet job on Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline. To summarize my assessment of the series, it was a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing. I am not the only one to be of that opinion. It is obvious that she is coming under fire because she is a friend of her predecessor Mike Nifong, and because she has treated him with civility… and the Carpetbagger Jihadist position strictly forbids that, as they follow the dictum that “the friend of my enemy is my enemy.” Claiming that Ms. Cline is under fire is a ruse to get the public to believe that there is widespread disapproval in her work. From what I see, the only disapproval of her job performance is from The News & Observer. Alas, a review of the media treatment of Ms. Cline is worthy of a blog itself.

Instead of hyping sensational stories with the intent of ruining careers, tarnishing reputations and destroying lives, all media-types should make a conscientious effort to report the news fairly and objectively. That would be the best service they could provide for its consumers. 

Coming soon: A flog about Governor Bev Perdue and her race-based pardon policy

Challenge to the N&O’s Barry Saunders

In today’s The News & Observer of March 3, 2011, columnist Barry Saunders opined about Dr. Raymond Cook’s DWI case. Saunders pretty much jumps into any topic, no matter how controversial, with gusto, and usually produces a scathing, satirical, stinging, and sarcastic masterpiece. I am in awe of his literary talents, and only wish that on occasion he would lend them to this blog site.

However, the one topic that he has steered clear of is the shakedown of Duke University by the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and their attorneys for $20 million each… a total of $60 million. In addition, the university squandered another huge undisclosed amount of money for attorneys to try and get the school’s insurance company to reimburse them after Duke had flagrantly breached the contract. Mercifully, they finally agreed to drop their suit and lick their wounds.

Actually, there are three related stories that the media has recently decided to keep isolated and hush-hush with minimalist coverage. And they all began with an IRS lien filed around February 17, 2011 against Duke Lacrosse defendant Reade Seligmann. Local media pretended not to notice that the lien even existed, and it took the Detroit News, a newspaper in the Motor City in the state of Michigan, to bring it to the attention of the world. Now, in all fairness, local media did report about it on television and newsprint, however, if you blinked, you would’ve missed it. Keep in mind coverage of this volatile story pales in comparison with the massive media overload given to a rinky-dink piece of gossip about Duke Lacrosse detective Linwood Wilson. That story about a private and personal marital squabble consumed the local media spotlight for months.

Anyway, the disclosure of the Seligmann tax lien and resultant accurate estimates of the amount Duke doled out to the three defendants began when the university announced that it was going to settle the lawsuit it brought against National Union Fire Insurance Company. Basically, Duke would drop its suit, National Union would drop its countersuit, and both parties would pay for their own attorneys’ fees. On Duke’s part, it is a classic case of throwing good money after bad. Duke University was probably motivated to settle when it learned that a lien against Seligmann had been applied by the IRS.

The Detroit News article was published about a week after that, and reported in The News & Observer shortly thereafter, a day after its article on Duke’s settlement.

Then, low and behold, three days later, Duke University raised its tuition a whopping 4.3% … to total as much as $53,905 with room and board included. Well, it is no wonder after its ill-advised and generous gift to the three Duke Lacrosse defendants… the university is trying to make up for its $60 million plus loss on the backpacks of its students.

What Duke University needs to do is address the compensation paid to the administrators instead of shifting attention to the students in the form of tuition and other fees. Administrators with their high salaries, bonuses, pensions, and benefits are financially sapping the budget of funds that should be used to pay instructors and professors and help defray costs to its student body. At least that’s my opinion, and I would really be interested in what Barry Saunders has to say about this and other topics touched upon in this blog.

Barry, I know that you must answer to you superiors, so I recommend that before you take my challenge that you obtain an okay first. I would hate for you to be axed on my account. Anyway, the gauntlet has been thrown. Barry, it’s your move. 


NOTE: Due to unavoidable and unforeseen scheduling conflicts, Part 10 of Episode V of “The MisAdventures of Super-Duper Cooper” will be uploaded today, three days earlier than planned. Be sure to check out the commentary which follows. At the end of the commentary feature, there is a page with an e-mail link. I appreciate all feedback.

A link to Part 10 is below:

LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/sdcDirec/sdcEpv/sdc151.htm

Enjoy.

Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, Wyatt Earp, Eliot Ness, and Mike Nifong

Recently, The Independent Weekly, a Triangle area arts and entertainment publication, which has an aversion to me, featured an article by a “Casual Observer.” The title of the July 14, 2010 article, “Razing questions: The last day of the Duke lacrosse house” by Adam Sobsey, included the following paragraph:
“The next morning, I was sitting in Parker & Otis with a cup of coffee when two men sat down at an adjacent table. One of them turned on a voice recorder and interviewed the other – about the lacrosse scandal, astonishingly. The interviewee vigorously and lengthily attacked the media coverage of the case and defended Nifong. It was even more astonishing to hear him compare Nifong to a cross between Wyatt Earp and Eliot Ness. The building may have been demolished, but apparently we are still picking through its controversial remains.”

Yep, I was the interviewee. A gentleman was working on a project for his doctorial thesis and we met that day in Durham for the interview about how African Americans responded and reacted to the Duke Lacrosse case. As the casual observer accurately observed, I did place well-deserved criticism about biased and unfair coverage on the mainstream media… which is in lockstep with the Carpetbagger Jihad agenda to destroy former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and anyone considered to be on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case.

A most conspicuous example of slanted media coverage is the utilization of the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy as evidenced in the recent series in The News & Observer which lays prosecutorial misdeeds on SBI agents and its lab. No where in the entire four part series, spread out over a week, did any of the articles, or related articles mention a prosecutor’s name with a case of injustice. For example, Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford’s name was never mentioned, although he was responsible for putting an innocent man prison for 17 years of a life sentence (Greg Taylor). The name of Prosecutor David Hoke’s name was put in print, even though he convinced a jury to place an innocent man (Alan Gell) on death row. Anson County District Attorney Michael D. Parker wasn’t named in the paper’s series even though he was responsible for an innocent man (Floyd Brown) being incarcerated for fourteen years without a trial. Instead, the newspaper placed blame for these and other flagrant injustices on SBI agents and workers in its forensic lab.

Contrast that coverage to what happened when police investigator Linwood Wilson was charged with “obscenity stalking” as a result of marital discord… the headlines blared, “Nifong’s investigator arrested,” “Nifong’s investigator charged with stalking,” etc. You get the picture. The media, unfortunately, is integrally involved in shaping public opinion, and every chance it gets to link Mr. Nifong to a negative story, it will jump at the chance.

Now, I was pleased with the reference in The Independent Weekly by Mr. Sobsey. And, as I have said for some time, Mr. Nifong has the important and positive characteristics of Wyatt Earp, Eliot Ness, and Thomas Beckett. As a prosecutor, Mr. Nifong believed in law, and he set his career to seeing justice carried out, as devoted to law enforcement as Marshal Wyatt Earp. Like the “Untouchables’” Eliot Ness, Mr. Nifong would not be swayed by coercion, peer pressure, public sentiment, or “suggestions” from higher-ups. Finally, Mr. Nifong exhibited the courage and independence of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett in seeking justice… not bending under the force of the Carpetbagger Cabal. And contrary to the lies put forth in the media from the unregulated North Carolina State Bar adjudicator F. Lane Williamson, and others, Mike Nifong prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse defendants when doing so presented a definite disadvantage to his being elected to his appointed position of Durham district attorney.

What is truly sad is that the people of Durham have been snookered out of having one of North Carolina’s truly great prosecutors serve their county. Mike Nifong exemplified a “Minister of Justice” who put getting it right ahead of winning no matter what the costs. It is the people of Durham who share in this blame because they remained silent and idle, allowing the travesty against Mr. Nifong to take root and flourish. Unfortunately, as is often the case, a man possessing the admirable qualities of Beckett, Earp, and Ness, was considered too much of a risk for the Powers-That-Be who wanted to have free rein to co-opt their version of justice as opposed to enforcing the sacrosanct principle of “equal justice for all.”

Linwood Wilson…Nifong’s personal investigator?

WRAL and other mainstream media outlets continue to spin the news reports like yarn by stating that former Duke Lacrosse case investigator Linwood Wilson is Mike Nifong’s investigator. A recent WRAL online article about Linwood Wilson has the following headline: “Guns, computers seized from home of former Nifong investigator.” It doesn’t read: “… of former Duke Lacrosse investigator.” It doesn’t read: … of former state investigator.” The fact is that Mr. Wilson is not Mr. Nifong’s personal investigator, and the media is red-handedly caught purposely trying to tie Mike Nifong into the recent domestic troubles facing Linwood Wilson.

A sampling of other WRAL online headlines about Linwood Wilson, who is currently under a cloud of negative publicity and possible criminal charges, include the following:
“Former Nifong investigator gets higher bond after case revisited;” “State handling domestic case involving former Nifong aide;” and “Nifong’s former investigator in domestic dispute.”

However, Linwood Wilson’s presently alleged problems being tied to the former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong is nothing new. A WRAL headline in 2007 read: “Nifong’s top investigator toppled.” And an article in 2008, which was also about Mr. Wilson, read: “Nifong’s investigator in Duke case wants lawsuit dropped.”

Such headline is disingenuous to say the least, and without doubt, selective. When the state and media recently lowered the boom against the initial head investigator of the case against Alan Gell, Dwight Ransome, the media referred to him as “SBI investigator.” The mainstream media never mentioned or referred to Mr. Ransome as “(David) Hoke’s investigator.” In fact, in most all media articles about Alan Gell’s unjust prosecution, Prosecutor David Hoke’s name was never mentioned. This, of course, is in strict compliance with the media’s PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy.

However, it is unheard of for media to attribute investigators as being possessions of the prosecutor(s) of cases being investigated. Only in the Duke Lacrosse case can one expect the unusual, the unexpected, the unprecedented, and the unjust treatment by the state and the media.

Like Mike Nifong, Crystal Mangum, Brian Meehan, myself, and others who are considered to be supporters of Mike Nifong and/or on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case, Linwood Wilson, as a Duke Lacrosse prosecution investigator, is a high valued target in the Carpetbagger Jihad agenda. Because of that, it is unwise for one to place faith in what is spoon-fed about him to the public by the media. The media has been very effective in vilifying Mike Nifong, and supporting the state’s trumped up charges against Crystal Mangum, the victim in the Duke Lacrosse case.