[bebanovich]

Originally posted by ChuckElias

I'm not a journalist, so this is an honest question. What more could she have done to establish his credibility? She tried to contact the coach. She did contact the officials. And she talked to "several" observers who had no rooting interest. Without being an eyewitness, what else should she do to verify/falsify the coach's claims?

She didn't necessarily have a rooting interest in the game (though she doesn't state this either way) but she clearly has a point-of-view on the topic. Her only statement establishing objective credibility of sources was to say "I’ve spoken to lots of objective people." What does that mean? Are they from one of the schools or the newspaper? Are they objective because they are not there as fans or because you, as the writer consider them objective? Was their an "objective people" section and she took her sources from there? Lots? My high school journalism students don't get to come to me with that word - you use it when you're being mentally lazy or dishonest. I don't know why she isn't telling me more about her sources, too much work or they don't sound as objective on paper but that does not get through my filter. If I really want to wait for someone to verify/falsify coach's claims, I will wait for a news reporter and not a columnist. Even then, their work should pass the smell-test.

But can you please spare us the hand-wringing over "playing the race card" and the fake moralizing over not teaching kids that the world is unfair and that racism must be overcome. I think the hand-wringing is not about moralizing, but about being ticked off about FALSE accusations of racism. You don't see any hand-wringing when David Duke is drummed out of politics b/c the accusations of racism are true. You don't see any hand-wringing when Texaco is fined billions of dollars for failing to promote qualified black executives b/c the accusations of racism are true.

The hand-wringing is because it's wrong to accuse someone falsely of racism, just as it's wrong to discriminate solely on the basis of race. JMO, as always.

I could be wrong, but didn't the Texaco case involve audio tapes on the nightly news? If so, that's the kind of high bar for a smoking gun involving blatant racism that seems to be required to fend off "race card" calls - and I bet there were a few of those initially anyway. You are, of course, right about false accusations being damaging and I think the editorial board of the paper needs, at least, to take a look at their initial decision to publish the names of the officials.

I also stand by my opinion that none of us really knows the story yet and it seems a little premature to decry use of the "race card" in this instance. I think it's very appropriate to talk about whatever rules prohibit the coach from speaking out and to use those as a benchmark to determine inapproriateness of his actions. I just hate to see, especially premature, pounding of the term "race card" because it has the side-effect of silencing people when they are really the victims of racism. And it often won't be the kind of violent or hateful act you would have seen in 1965, it will be a subtle comment or stereotype or lowered expectation - the kind of thing that can have equally devastating effects over time and must be dealt with more openly.

[Edited by bebanovich on Mar 7th, 2006 at 04:44 PM]