Newsweek is joining the chorus of Duke lacrosse case doubters.
The magazine’s cover headline reads “Duke: Should the case be dropped?”
Editor Mark Whitaker (who justified earlier high-profile coverage because of the story’s elements of race, class, etc.) writes:
[I]n our lead story, Evan Thomas and Susannah Meadows examine the growing evidence that the prosecution may not have a convincing case, and that the accused lacrosse players may have been victims of an overzealous D.A. and an overheated press corps.
Here’s that lead story, in which Thomas and Meadows write:
It is possible, almost three months later, that the players are maintaining a conspiracy of silence. But it seems highly unlikely. Rather, court documents in the case increasingly suggest that Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong had very little evidence upon which to indict three players for rape. Indeed, the available evidence is so thin or contradictory that it seems fair to ask what Nifong could have been thinking when he confidently told reporters that there was “no doubt” in his mind that the woman had been raped at the party held by the lacrosse team.
Whatever happened in March, this story certainly demonstrates the media’s willingness to jump the gun on convicting people before their guilt is proven in a court of law.
