Kudos to the N&R

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GREENSBORO, NC -- It's a small thing, but an important thing, and amid the landslide of things going wrong at the local daily, it's good to find some glimmer of hope that someone at the News & Record still understands the fundamental importance of journalism: reporting an accurate portrayal of the truth.

Yesterday, a Greensboro city employee with the Parks & Recreation Department's cemetery crew was arrested for allegedly exposing himself. He was an employee when the events allegedly occurred, however, he resigned, according to the city, "immediately prior to his arrest."

This allowed the city to issue a press release that announced, "Former City Employee Arrested for Indecent Exposure" (emphasis added), which makes it sound like some guy who used to work for the city was arrested for indecent exposure, which has much different implications than what really happened which is that the guy was arrested for acts allegedly committed while he was an employee of the city.

Other news outlets dutifully regurgitated the City's headline.


"Former City of Greensboro Employee Arrested for Indecent Exposure," parroted the headline to a story at MyFox8.com (above) that has since been removed.

WFMY did nearly the same thing (below): "Former City Employee Charged With Exposure,"


The News & Record, however, saw through the City's attempt to manipulate the message and accurately reported, "City worker charged with exposing self to child, 2 others at Target."


This is one of the fundamental responsibilities of journalists: filter through the bull that accompanies the self-interested pronouncements of authorities and the powerful. I wish the N&R had more of an appetite for it. They could set themselves apart if they did this more often, but good for them for getting it right on this one.