Today's Joplin Globe featured an article on the upcoming preliminary hearing of accused killer Jim Edward Ryan in Barton County Circuit Court in Lamar. In that story, the Globe kept referring to the victim, John Kullie, as John Cooley, and to his wife (Ryan's sister) as Becky Cooley, when she, of course, is Becky Kullie.
That's what happens when you don't ask for spelling on names and assume that a name is spelled in the common fashion. If the Globe reporter checked with case.net to find out if John Cooley had a record, he would have found nothing. But checking for John Kullie's record is an entirely different matter. Though it may not have had any bearing on the case, the reporter would have discovered that John Kullie had several brushes with the law and had spent some time in prison. He had been before judges in Jasper and Newton counties.
He would have discovered that Rebecca Kullie was awaiting a June 16 hearing in Jasper County Circuit Court on felony marijuana possession charges. She was granted a continuance and now has a 1:30 p.m. July 13 hearing set before Judge Stephen Carlton.
I don't know if those little tidbits of information would have made any difference, but if you don't know how to spell the name, you are not going to come across them.
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The story on the drunk driver who interrupted the funeral procession told how the driver went off the square and slammed into John's Pharmacy. No such place exists. However, Jon's Pharmacy does.
I will be the first to admit, it's a lot easier for me. When I make a mistake, I can get back on the internet and fix it. People who write for newspapers have no such luxuries.
As a former Globe reporter (Webb City, CJ, Duenweg, Carterville, etc.), I am hardly surprised.
ReplyDeleteRule one -- ask the person to spell first and last names. I didn't even go to j-school and that was the first thing I knew walking into a job!
Sad, isn't it.