by David B. Lewis
from: massbike@cycling.org, December 9, 1997
Jack Thomas,
I was one of the members of the local bicycling community who spokewith you about the Gladstone-Spring collision. At the time, I had someconfidence that that you would make amends for the Globe's handling ofthe case. Instead, I find that your Ombudsman column of today (Monday,December 8) has done little to clear up the Globe's role in the affairwhile raising more questions about how the story was reported.
There are enough problems with the piece that I will cover them essentiallyin the order in which they appear.
1) in the first sentence, the use of the word "slammed" isdamning and implies blame. You might have been better to write that Springran into Gladstone's path, a fact which is not under dispute.
2) the description of the "local Web site" is inaccurate.The discussion on the massbike mailing list takes place through email;the people on the list are not conspiracy theorists or nuts. We are localbicyclists, commuters, and activists. The mailing list is archived on aWeb site; however, Gladstone did not "sign into the Web" butsimply mailed his message to the redistribution address.
In addition, I detect an implication that the faster nature of electroniccommunication in some way makes it less reliable than, say, a daily newspaper.In this case, readers on the massbike list were treated to a first-personaccount of the accident. You write that "Gladstone declined to beinterviewed by the Globe"; in fact, he was interviewed by Daley forher original piece. Perhaps you meant that he declined to be interviewedby you or by the Globe for later stories, as is implied in the next paragraph.
3) the first report ran in the Globe on 11/5. You write that Daley wasassigned to "update the story". You should have noted that shewas, presumably, updating the 11/5 notice. The 11/7 story was not the firstto appear in the Globe.
4) you appear to assume that the final police report, which appearsto show that Spring was in the crosswalk, is equivalent to showing thathe was not jaywalking. (I believe Evans' statement is incorrect.) I findit very disturbing that you place the statement immediately after a discussionof Micho Spring's ability to handle a telephone. You might have done abetter job in raising the issue of whether the police report was changed.
5) you omit the handling of the case in which Gladstone is treated asa courier, rather than as a bicyclist. In particular, the 11/7 coveragehad articles on the "hazards of bike couriers", which is somewhatsensationalistic. Gladstone's licensing should not have been an issue,and the Globe should be ashamed of itself for taking this angle on thestory.
6) you omit the follow-up stories by Zachary Dowdy concerning the reactionby the Boston Police self-appointed task force. A newspaper which is currentlyrunning a Spotlight series about the local police may have thought to questionthe motives of this task force, particularly in the absence of any legitimateoffense by Gladstone.
7) you omit the notable story by Zachary Dowdy (11/14/97, p. D27) andthe extra correction a day later, in which the Globe again published aquestionable correction.
8) your conclusion that reporters ought to resist the temptation toconfide the contents of their stories is accurate; but it then leads tothe question of exactly how Micho Spring was given advance informationof the 11/7 story.
10) your story concludes with an unchallenged quote by Micho Spring.If there are other eyewitnesses, where are they? The information aboutheadlights is irrelevant to whether Spring was jaywalking; in particular,Gladstone may have been within the bounds of the law on that point. Oh,and the "solidarity" cyclists feel? Read your story again andsee if you can figure out why we think Gladstone got a raw deal and whythe incident got bad coverage.
11) your conclusion that avoiding the distribution of erroneous informationin cyberspace is the lesson of this story is misleading. The Globe itselfpublished multiple versions of the story, and the Globe has much widerreadership than our mailing list. Whether or not the Web was "crackling",the Globe had a problem in covering this story.
David B. Lewis
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