Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The Times, the Post, and Hofstra

The name “Crystal Mangum” only appeared on the news pages of the New York Times after Mangum published her “memoir.” Carrying its policy of not naming sexual assault accusers to an absurdist extreme, the Times refused to use Mangum’s name when reporting on Attorney General Cooper’s announcement that Mangum’s myriad, mutually contradictory claims were wholly false and without any evidence.

While the Times made coverage of an alleged rape hundreds of miles away a priority (more than 100 articles), it has devoted scant attention to an equally spectacular claim of sexual assault just outside of New York City. (Doubtless the fact that the suspects in the Hofstra case were non-white had nothing to do with the Times’ editorial judgment.)

In the one non-AP article the Times thus far has seen fit to run (on the dismissal of the charges), reporter Anahad O’Connor did not reveal the name of the false accuser, Danmell Ndonye, while he did mention the names and ages of the four people Ndonye had falsely accused.

I e-mailed O’Connor to ask about his rationale for this decision; he did not reply. But he did reply, through the Times automated e-mail system, to a DIW reader. His explanation: “The reason the article did not contain the accuser’s name is really quite simple. [Note in the e-mail, O’Connor still declines to use Ndonye’s name.] At the time the article was published, the authorities had yet to release it. It only came out at a later time. If you’re upset, you should direct your outrage at the district attorney’s office.

This explanation of what passes for Times journalism is an intriguing one. Perhaps the Times should change its motto from “All the News That’s Fit to Print” to “All the News Government Officials Have Seen Fit to Supply.” The latter motto certainly would have covered Duff Wilson’s role as a de facto stenographer for Mike Nifong during the lacrosse case.

In any event, O’Connor’s explanation is simply untrue. On the same day that the Times left its readers ignorant, the New York Post reported Ndonye’s name. Perhaps, on sexual assault cases, the Post understands that newspapers must do more than simply copy down what the authorities say.

18 comments:

a Nice NJ Guy said...

NY Times Motto (Upper Left Corner, Page 1):

All the news that Fits our Agenda, We Print

Anonymous said...

Is O'Connor a Communist?

Gary Packwood said...

There is always the possibility that The New York Times is well aware of what young women are being taught in those dorm meetings about how to take down privileged young males. After all, The Times must have learned something from the 'Take Back The Night' programming at Duke.

Hofstra has the same 'Take Back The Night' program as Duke however the web links at Hofstra are dead(of course). They did have a meeting in November 2007 that looks identical to the Duke meetings.

Take Back the Night
Monday, November 5, 2007
7:30 PM
Mack Student Center, Greenhouse
Sexual Assault Speak-Out
Free Dinner
Sponsored by Womyn of Action

http://tinyurl.com/nx5vdn

We will eventually learn what these young women are taught in those indoctrination sessions and there will be many who feel such news...is not fit to print.
::
GP

Debrah said...

"While the Times made coverage of an alleged rape hundreds of miles away a priority (more than 100 articles), it has devoted scant attention to an equally spectacular claim of sexual assault just outside of New York City."
*************************

Has anyone else made note of this in the media?

This is really quite astonishing.

Comical that the mainstream media play down certain criminal cases.

Debrah said...

This is a bit off-topic; however, generally, on-topic for this discussion.

I wish someone would send this post and the second comment to Rev. Barber and the NCNAACP.

LOL!

No Justice, No Peace said...

The Duke hoax will be the benchmark against all false charges for the foreseeable future.

Duke mentioned at least twice in the intro...

Of interest is the point that Hofstra moved quickly while Duke...well they haven't.

No Justice, No Peace said...

Inre: Is O'Connor a Communist...

Don't know about that but Stalin's "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevist)" instructs one that, among other things...

The Tasks of Party Propaganda

"...The strength of Marxist-Leninist theory is that it gives the party the ability in any situation to understand the inner connections of the events around it, to see the course events will take, and recognize not only how and in which directions events are going, but also how and in which direction they must develop in the future..."

"...Lenin and Stalin have always given great attention to the development of propaganda...They have stressed the organizing and mobilizing role of the ideas of the Bolshevist party in the fight for the victory of the proletarian revolution and the building of communism."

So in the context of presenting how and in which direction events MUST develop, O'Connor is acting more like a Stalinist.

Thanks for asking...

Pierce Harlan said...

The Times' naming of the four victims, and its refusal to name the person they likely regard as more a victim than a criminal false rape accuser, is nothing more than a sorry vestige of radical feminism that purports to empower women by pretending they are powerless. It is yet one more example of a wrongheaded, politicized policy that treats the falsely accused as unfortunate but necessary collateral damage, flotsam really, in "the more important" war on rape.

Anonymous said...

It seems that agents for the New York Times would rather lie AND admit that they'd been scooped by the New York Post rather than fess up to politically correct thinking. Well, that's a start. If they believe that they need to lie about their PC narrative to keep it hidden, then we've made some progress.

********************

MEANWHILE BACK IN DURHAM ...

There's been another alleged mugging on the Duke campus. This was Dean Sue Wasiolek's response as reported by the Chronicle:

"It is currently unclear whether the student was alone at the time, though it is likely the student was, said Sue Wasiolek, dean of students and assistant vice president for student affairs. She added that she is uncertain whether DUPD will be increasing patrols in the area as a result of Tuesday's incident. 'It's difficult to speculate if anything like this could be prevented,' she said. 'The one option that you can keep in mind is to try not to find ourselves isolated in any particular area on campus.'"

There is so much wrong in the short statement that I wonder how this person can keep a job as a spokesperson for Duke University. MOO! Gregory

No Justice, No Peace said...

Madam Mayor Sallie Peake is either from Durham or on her way to Durham...

Mayor Bans Police Foot Pursuits

They must be drinking the same water in Welford.

"...When a local TV reporter asked about the policy, Peake would not answer and clapped her hands in mock praise that the reporter had found a story."

silent_l said...

In Hitchcock's film "Foreign Correspondent", the main character meets the newspaper's foreign correspondent in London. That man is quite proud of the fact that he gets away with simply forwarding the government's press releases to the paper, without doing any actual digging. Perhaps O'Connor comes from that school of reporting?

Debrah said...

Lots happening on the Duke campus.

This will be Homecoming Weekend.....

......and as an added bonus, visitors will have a chance to dwell in the house of the Lord with one Timothy Tyson.

He stays really busy!

Mr. T. said...

Perhaps my memory is faulty but was not the NYT more than excited to expose the identity of the Central Park Jogger in their pages? As I recall, their role in that controversy was very involved. Perhaps someone here could clarify.

E.T.

Anonymous said...

Someone in this country is going to have to interface with reality and soon. It just cannot go on in this way. The inability of the Times to understand the world is making it a newspaper of little or no consequence in the way that the paper would like to be thought and of great consequence in terms of ineffective nonsense. It is as if one has to read around this great covering up past the corners of the paper, and yes, the World Trade Center is gone . . . finally, and after a second attack. Is the Times with all its supposed intellectual superiority aware of this fact? The Duke lacrosse incident was a lynching, and Hofstra . . . well, Hofstra seems to have been a lie from start to fininsh . . . , but I wouldn't know it from the Times.

Debrah said...

'Cry Rape' Gal Getting A Pass

Anonymous said...

As a former newspaper reporter, once again I am sorely disappointed by the policy of the New York Times. To shield the name of a law-breaker who makes a false complaint of rape or sexual assault, while publishing the names AND PHOTOGRAPHS of the falsely accused suspects is unconscionable.

At least the District Attorney who has the case is prosecuting the young woman who made the false accusations.

And at least other newspapers have published her name and, in one case, her photo.

This absurd policy of the N.Y. Times mystifies me.

Gus W.

Bumper said...

The DA in the Hofstra case is not going to charge the false accuser with a crime and instead require she get therapy and do community service. This because the DA, Katheen Rice, who reportedly curries favor with the female voters, says it because to charge her would keep real rape victims from reporting the crime.

TOTAL BS.

This DA should be Nifonged for malfeasance.

jamil hussein said...

"what young women are being taught in those dorm meetings about how to take down privileged young males..Hofstra has the same 'Take Back The Night' program as Duke however the web links at Hofstra are dead(of course). "


Would it be possible to sue the school for this, ie participatory or contributory involvement, incitement, indoctrination and creating the atmosphere of hate? Current thought-crimes (aka "hate-crime") legislation might also be used for this.

This Gang88/Feminist/Marxist lunacy does not end until the schools have been sued for $100M, by the wrongly accused.