Today's items — updated:
Ray Gronberg / Herald-Sun:
Duke president plans changes to athletics -- Shrugging off two reports that in different ways suggested throttling back Duke University's involvement in intercollegiate athletics, school President Richard Brodhead is signaling that he wants to improve Duke's long-struggling football team.
An all-but-signed order from Brodhead favors the creation of a five-year strategic plan for athletics that among other things would "bring football to a level of performance consistent with Duke's mission in athletics," which is to "frequently produce winning seasons and the realistic opportunity to compete for team and individual championships."
Work on the plan is already under way, and a draft is supposed to reach administrators and Duke's Board of Trustees in February.
The plan's football component is even further along. "There's a bunch of work been done on that over the last six months to a year," said Jon Jackson, an associate athletics director who wouldn't discuss specifics about what the document might recommend.
The wording of Brodhead's draft order to Athletics Director Joe Alleva surfaced last week as the president was getting ready to ask Duke's Academic Council to support a revision of the school's mission statement for athletics. [...]
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KC Johnson:Memo to: Editor Ashley -- In an interview last week with Boston’s Public Radio station, Herald-Sun editor Bob Ashley launched a new defense of his paper’s embarrassing performance in the lacrosse case. After declining to affirm that he wasn’t afraid of a lawsuit because of the many H-S errors over the course of the past 18 months, he offered a new party line: those criticizing the H-S are engaged in after-the-fact attacks.
Ashley was, on occasion, almost comical in his remarks. For instance, at 21.41 of the link, he asserted, “I think we were skeptical in many instances.” [...]
comment: Bob forgot to mention that his paper's coverage of the lacrosse case won some awards. Bob Ashley and the Herald-Sun, the official Durham organ of disinformation, were the proud recipients of a couple of The Johnsville News' coveted "Freedom of the Press" Awards back in February --
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Best Director/Editor of an organ of misinformation and lies in support of an evil corrupt D.A. and his hoax
Winner - Bob Ashley, Editor Herald-Sun
Lifetime Achievement AwardBest Supporting Reporter for an evil corrupt D.A. and his hoax
Winner - John Stevenson, Herald-Sun reporterYear long body of work
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skip / The Maverick Conservative blog:
New York Times, CNN, Nancy Grace, Fox News and the Mike Nifongs of the Media -- Yes, there is a new book out (featured on O'Reilly last night) confirming what this blog has long told you: Mike Nifong is one of the LEAST offenders out there in presuming people guilty; hiding or failing to reveal (or discover) facts; speculating on guilt, labeling people guilty with inadquate facts or based on sensational allegations/material having nothing to do with factual guilt or innocence; and generally just putting a "point of view" ahead of mere FACTS.
This new book details how the New York Times, CNN, and Nancy Grace committed sin after sin for weeks and months in the Duke rape case, in declaring the Duke players guilty despite the lack of evidence.
This blog has told you the same thing on the way the media is now treating ALL criminal cases that come to its attention. This includes the Duke rape case, but also includes MANY other cases. I even correctly told you that the media was wrong to condemn the Duke players a guilty, AND wrong (some of the media) to start condemning the ACCUSER on little but speculation (instead of just reporting the facts--facts which would eventually clear the Duke players).
Problem: O'Reilly, as I have previously stated, is willing to CONDEMN this "presumption of guilt" by the media as truly EVIL [...]
Yet, O'Reilly does not seem to realize that Fox News is one of the WORST offenders in this regard. Greta Van Susteren often sounds like a less strident Nancy Grace [...]
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LieStoppers blog:John in Carolina:
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Forum topics of note:LS forum:
Jackson and Sharpton on Duke LAX -- This is good audio of Jesse Jackson attacking the Duke LAX players. Jackson starts around the 2:40 min mark - you should listen to the Jackson portion! [...]
LS forum:
Have you noticed? -- All night on the TV, all the Talking Heads have been saying is that any prosecution of OJ Simpson is severely handicapped by the criminal records of those that would be testifying for the state.
Almost in unison, the others are being laughed off as thugs and non-credible.
Kim Roberts-Pittman, who got a sweet deal from Nifong and Stephens and was on the run from the law on the night of the party with an outstanding warrant for her arrest, is a convicted Felon. Why didn't these same talking heads believe that the Duke LAX prosecution would be unsuccessful due to the Criminal records of Crystal and the only state's witness to the activities in the house - Kim Roberts-Pittman? [...]
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Michael Gaynor:From Duke Three to Jena Six -- When the agenda folks get into a case, they spread misinformation and try mightily to throttle truth.
The solution: less airtime for race hustlers, more for Mr. Whitlock and Ms. Barber.
After the huge hit taken by the forces of extreme political correctness when the Duke case was exposed as both baseless and an egregious example of prosecutorial abuse, political correctness extremists desperately needed to deflect attention from the vital lessons of the Duke case, replay the race card and claim victim status for someone to solidify the black bloc vote.
So they chose the prosecution of the Jena Six to target. [...]
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Carl McClanahan / Times-Gazette (Tenn.):Media Bias...Jena, Duke et al -- The liberal bias and political correctness of the national media in this Country could not have a better display than the racially based stories out of Louisiana and North Carolina. That theses stories have racial oppression at their root, are worthy of national exploitation and are to be repeated as nauseam is totally a fabrication on the national news media. This bias extends only to cases whereby those of African decent are alleged to be ill treated and, God forbid they must never foster or promote any story that shows these folk in a negative light.
To support this position lets first look at Jena, La. [...]
Pre-Jena we had the situation of "white boys" raping a black girl in North Carolina. Remember the Duke University lacrosse team and the young lady who was a stripper. After months of decrying these young men by the national media and, or yes, Masters Jackson and Sharpton, the truth came to light that "NOTHING HAPPENED AT ALL!"
The young lady making the charges had the dna of three different men inside her on the day of the "show", none of which were Duke lacrosse team members, but this fact was little reported lest is make her "look bad." Yet the media is not biased? [...]
