A “bill proposed in the legislature” would overturn the very laws that allowed Durham DA Mike Nifong’s shenanigans in the Duke lacrosse case to be uncovered. My first reaction to reading this is probably the same as most N&O readers: Who would do such an unwise thing? I scanned the story word by word and there is nary a mention of a bill sponsor. Naturally, this meant that these embarrassing bills were sponsored by Democrats.
Googling a bit, I found that, sure enough, it was two Democrats who proposed rolling back the law requiring full disclosure of evidence by prosecutors. Sen. Tony Rand, a Cumberland County Democrat, sponsored the Senate version and Rep. Ray Warren, a Catawba County Democrat, sponsored the House version. The names of the sponsors were not deemed worthy of mention by the N&O‘s editors or the reporter.
I’ve posted a couple of times in the past week or so regarding the omission of the Democratic label in several stories involving corruption. The news media involved have said this was just an oversight, but the continued redaction of the word Democrat in stories embarrassing to Democrats remains suspicious.
One of the media’s gravest responsibilities in a representative democracy is to hold public officials accountable, to let voters know who is responsible so they can either reward them in the next election or punish them. Leaving out the names of bill sponsors in stories such as this is an abdication of that responsibility.
