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2006-01-19 - 1:50 p.m.
Here's the letter to the editor they wouldn't print. But at least they published a correction. Cowards.
'Jenny Wanner: Fact Checking Crucial In Journalism
This is the second time I've written to the Daily Prestigious Midwestern University* on this subject.
The first was soon after Jenny Wanner was murdered, in response to the May 14, 2003 article by Dalia Nemerov-Goldstein*.
Jenny was a close friend of mine, and I found it remarkably insensitive to her friends and loved ones to get her name wrong in an article about her death. This, of course, could have been avoided by simple diligence.
Here is an award winning college newspaper, the "prodigious training ground for some of the nation�s most influential writers and editors", affiliated with one of the top universities and a leading journalism school. Yet in so simple a matter as getting the name of a murdered alum correct the Daily fails not once, but twice.
While you fledgling journalists are here learning your trade, I hope you'll come away with an appreciation for the consequences of failing to do the whole job.
In this case the consequences are relatively small, the insult to the memory of a slain alum and to her friends and loved ones, and, I hope, the embarassment of the writer and editor who worked on the story. An embarassment for failing to do the job completely.
One could argue that the available information wasn't there, or that the author was mis-informed, as Ms. Nemerov-Goldstein did. However, a simple search of the Daily's own archives shows three articles with Jenny's name cited correctly vs. two incorrectly, including today's article. Google finds references citing Jenny's name correctly as well. There are other sources here at the University that could have been checked.
Relatively small consequences, here, but when Daily Prestigious Midwestern University, and Flugelhorn School of Journalism* alums move on to work in the "real world" the consequences could be much larger.
Doggo McDogsolitude
Cc: Letter to the Editor, Daily Prestigious Midwestern University'
*Names have been changed to protect the future-rich-and-powerful, and to protect myself, at least somewhat, from slander/libel/frivolous lawsuits.
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So, how do you like them apples?