Jul 12, 2010
Noticed but nameless in The Wall Street Journal
“A Maryland newspaper.”
Really, The Wall Street Journal? You write about news The Daily Record broke, and you credit “a Maryland newspaper”?
What, your story ran over by a line so you had to cut out our name? Or maybe all your fact-checkers had the day off?
Or were you trying to be cute, since today’s article — “Anonymous Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury” — is, after all, about withholding names?
In the article, reporters Ashby Jones and Nathan Koppel use the trial of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich as a news hook to discuss the practice of withholding the names and addresses of jurors.
The writers spoke to none other than Judge Dennis M. Sweeney, who faced that issue last year in the Sheila Dixon trial. Sweeney, you may recall, released the jurors’ names only after the verdict was in.
To quote the article:
After Judge Sweeney released the jurors’ names, a Maryland newspaper discovered five of the Dixon jurors had ‘friended’ each other on Facebook and mentioned the case in Facebook discussions while the verdict was still pending — a violation of the judge’s orders.
Did you catch that? “A Maryland newspaper.” That’s us: The Daily Record. That discovery was the product of reporter Brendan Kearney’s digging, on a night that went past deadline so he could pin down the details.
Ah, details. You remember details, right, The Wall Street Journal?
Or is it “a New York paper” now?
[...] Noticed but nameless in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 Noticed but nameless in The Wall Street Journal Daily Record (subscription) Really, The Wall Street Journal? You write about news The Daily Record broke, and you credit “a Maryland newspaper”? What, your story ran over by a line so … http://mddailyrecord.com/ontherecord/2010/07/12/noticed-but-nameless-in-the-wall-street-journal/ [...]
A little sensitive aren’t you, particularly given the fact that almost everything I read in the Daily Record (bake sales excepted, of course), has appeared elsewhere several days earlier. You should be grateful Ashby Jones identified the correct state. Maybe you’re new at this reporting gig and think a single story is the same as a pattern and practice. Do interesting work consistently and you won’t have to worry about being just an unnamed local paper.
Maybe he didn’t name “The Daily Record” because nobody has ever heard of it — outside of people in Baltimore who walk by the honor boxes with three-week-old papers.