Other Crap

How did the Duke rape case get so misreported and so mis-prosecuted

"What's unique about this case from Nifong, is you have perhaps the worst prosecutorial misconduct in the last decade, and people have been sent to jail for prosecutorial misconduct. With Nifong it's five or six very, very serious cases of misconduct in one case."

What most people don't understand is the almost universal incompetence of newspaper reporters. Right-wingers tend to mis-identify this as bias, but bias plays only a small very part. If you have ever had a story written about you, you know that the real problems are not bias, but laziness and stupidity. Most reporters don't understand the things they are reporting about, have no patience with nuance, and are generally too lazy to learn enough about the subjects to write a fair article. As a result, they end up writing stories that (1) are excessively sensational; (2) reinforce their own world-view.

This particular story is about one man who resolved to find out the real facts of the case and report them - on the internet. He was actually a history professor and a blogger, but ended up being the only true investigative journalist on the case until the mainstream media finally realized they were getting hosed.