Thursday, October 27, 2011

D&C Scrubs Story on Campaign Ad

Tuesday night an online Democrat and Chronicle story quoted from a ruling of the Fair Election Practices Committee.   It said the FEPC found that Democratic candidate for District Attorney Sandra Doorley was in a positon of substantial leadership in the DA's office when the office bungled the Eric Magin case. The same story appeared in yesterday's print edition.

Now, "being in a position of substantial leadership" doesn't make someone responsible for the bungle, not by a long shot.  But the D&C doesn't take chances with its favored party's candidates.  Yesterday the D&C gave the online story a good political scrubbing, purging references critical of Doorley.

Original Story

Of the FEPC's ruling reporter Gary Craig wrote:

Doorley said she had no hand in Magin's earlier release from jail after dismissal of an assault charge.   As first assistant district attorney Doorley was in "a position of substantial leadership" when Magin was released, the committee said ...

Screenshot - Original Story
Scrubbed Story
Doorley said she had no hand in Magin’s earlier release from jail after dismissal of an assault charge. The committee decided that the jail was “partly responsible” when Magin was released on July 22, and that Doorley was in leadership through July 21.

Screenshot - Scrubbed story

Thus disappears the observation that "Doorley was in 'a position of substantial leadership'" of the DA's office, scarcely a controversial comment.

Less than a day before the D&C scrubbed the story, The New York Times chastized Gannett, noting its outlets are "Never a standout in journalism performance ..."

Then in rushes D&C Editor Karen Magnuson and the paper's editorial coven, to scrub the Doorley story and to prove the Times's point.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Pure corruption. The D&C writes a story and apparently after getting a call from Joe Morelle or someone else at the County Democrat Party, they remove anything unfavorable despite it being factually accurate. Pure corruption.