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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 3/9/2007 11:56:38 AM
Title: Eichenwald: I made a mistake, but...
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From KURT EICHENWALD: It is quite an experience to be on the receiving end of journalism. It is now abundantly clear to me why our profession has such an ungodly reputation among the public. The first story says “cat.’’ The second says "tiger.’" And the third says “office building.’’ And all on the basis of no reporting.

There are a handful of people who could provide information about the events involving me in June 2005. One is Justin Berry, who is in Michigan testifying in a criminal case and has been contacted by no one. One is me, who has been contacted by a handful of reporters, despite the fact that I am easily reached. (Of that handful, only a smaller fraction have been willing to listen to the full details of what happened; the rest said they did not have time to hear the details, because they had to write their stories.) The third is the prosecutor in the Michigan case, who has elicited all the evidence in the case and has taken sworn testimony of all the participants (he is appalled at what is being written about me, and volunteered that he would speak to any member of the press to set the record straight; I have conveyed this offer repeatedly to journalists. Not one reporter was even willing to take the man’s phone number.)

So, if there is no real reporting going on, what we have is journalist after journalist writing stories about what they *think* happened. (I will get to the abjectly false depiction of my sworn testimony by Debbie Nathan in a moment.) And the evolution is fast – we start with an editor’s note that is accurate, but misleading. That then becomes reinterpreted into a false accusation – that I paid a source for information, that I lent a source money, that I engaged in checkbook journalism – that is repeated ad infinitum. That false accusation then spins out of control, with “reporters” suggesting that I engaged in all sorts of illegal and immoral acts. The details mentioned in the stories get fuzzier and more inaccurate. And then media critics like Jack Shafer hold me accountable for the changing and inaccurate stories, suggesting – without bothering to call me – that *I* am the one changing the details of the story.

When I do testify publicly, my statements are covered by a "journalist” who has publicly stated she engaged in “libel per se” against me in the past, and who has been nursing a deep and public anger against me following a ugly confrontation in the fall./CONTINUED

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