Apparently, the Springfield News-Leader has uncovered a wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed by former theater instructor George Cron against the Missouri State University Board of Governors, dance teacher Rhythm McCarthy, and former head of the Department of Theatre and Dance Jay Raphael.
In an article in today's edition, reporter Steve Koehler writes:
A former Missouri State University professor says in a lawsuit that his decision to break off a romantic relationship with a female faculty member led to his wrongful firing.
George Cron also says that rebuking the woman's "sexual advances" set in motion events that led to MSU officials improperly denying him tenure, damaging his reputation and defaming him as "sexist" and "bigoted."
The article gives a balanced portrayal of the lawsuit itself, but it also misleads the readers (at least those who do not also read The Turner Report) into thinking that this lawsuit has just been filed.
For instance, there is no mention of the recently postponed court date or for the fact that the trial is likely to happen within the next couple of months until late in the article.
More importantly, Koehler (or his editors) fail to mention until late in the article that this lawsuit was not just filed this week...it was filed nearly 18 months ago, on March 31, 2006, and was first reported on this blog on April 3, 2006.
Even the News-Leader headline (at least the one used on the website) gives the impression that this is some recent event- "Former professor files lawsuit over firing."
The news peg in this one is no longer that a lawsuit was filed...the newspaper missed the boat on that one 18 months ago. The upcoming trial is the story. but the question still remains, why has the News-Leader ignored this story for 18 months?
3 comments:
Randy:
You may have missed this graf in the N-L story or you didn't read it all...
The suit, which was filed in March 2006 and is slated for trial in upcoming weeks, contains a ping-pong-like series of claims against Cron and an arbitrator's counterclaims.
I did miss that. Thanks for pointing that out. I suppose I expected that the fact that the trial date was rapidly approaching and the date it was filed should not have been buried in the story, but should have been nearer to the lead, since they do answer the when part of who, what, when, where, why, and how.
I have modified the original entry to correct my error, but I will leave these comments to leave no doubt that I made the mistake in the first place.
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