From the Washington Post:
The University of Georgia sent a
nine-page letter to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) last week seeking a retraction of the paper’s June 27 investigative report, “
UGA football program rallies when players accused of abusing women.” News organizations occasionally receive demands for retractions, which often amount to little more than a PR stunt designed to placate supporters.
This, however, was something different. “Upon review, we discovered parts of the story did not meet our standards, and for that we apologize,” the AJC said in a statement issued Wednesday. It published a
story announcing corrections,
changed the original piece and fired the reporter who wrote it. There was no retraction, but there might as well have been — such was the gap between what the story had promised and what it delivered.
The episode affirms that a rule of grade-school mathematics applies to journalism: Show your work.
The university’s retraction letter is a kitchen-sink affair. It hammers the AJC story for butchering a quote from a police interview, criticizes its comparison of Georgia football Head Coach Kirby Smart and his predecessor, alleges biased reporting in the past, and more. Its central objection focuses on the heart of the AJC’s original claim — namely, that 11 players had “remained with the team after women reported violent encounters to the police, to the university, or to both.” The story, written by veteran investigative reporter Alan Judd, said that the “exact number of accusations by women involving Georgia players is unknown.”
Perhaps. But after mentioning 11 players, the story highlighted just three cases — two involving players it named and another involving an unnamed player. The university’s retraction request argued that even those cases didn’t “meet” the criteria laid out in the AJC story. In its statement, the paper said its story contained two examples of the university “rallying” behind accused players. The corrected version of the story bears this headline: “UGA football program rallied in two incidents when players were accused of abusing women.”
So, the AJC’s original story was running an astounding reportorial deficit. After it was published, the university requested more information from Judd. “I’ve elevated this to my bosses, who will discuss and decide whether to make an exception to our policy on releasing unpublished material,” Judd told the university, according to messages a university official shared with the Erik Wemple Blog. That was a strange formulation, considering that the university asked for details to support a claim that
was published.
Eight days passed between the retraction request and the newspaper’s correction/apology. Whatever newsroom staffers’ efforts to stand up the 11-player assertion in the story, they came up short: “Our investigation has determined the precise count of 11 players could not be substantiated under AJC standards,” reads the newspaper’s statement.
Has the AJC arrived a different precise count? It’s not saying. “We are not going to cite a specific number,”
AJC publisher and president Andrew Morse said via email.
Key context for the AJC flop is Georgia sports craziness: Smart’s football teams have won two consecutive national championships and have the
recruiting successes for further gridiron glory. The team’s games aren’t just athletic contests; they’re cultural events. Georgia
fan sites, accordingly,
have provided extensive
coverage of the controversy — including
a piece noting that Judd resigned from the Louisville Courier Journal in 1988 after that
paper uncovered multiple problems with a series he had co-written. Judd issued a statement: “I am proud of the work I have done for the AJC for the last 24 years and I am grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to serve the community.” The newspaper’s corrections story credited him for his work on investigations and breaking news.
Given the stakes attached to Bulldog coverage, you’d expect that the AJC would put such a damaging story through all the editorial paces — and that a piece with 11 examples of bad behavior would have 11 corresponding bullet points. What’s more, the AJC didn’t present sufficient detail to the football program before publishing, according to Claude Felton, associate athletic director. “The AJC never — before or after the story ran — identified the 11 players it claims ‘remained with the team after women reported violent encounters to the police, to the university, or to both,’” wrote Felton in an email. (The AJC says that it presented the
number of players to the university a day before publication; to date, it still hasn’t published any names other than the two in the original story.) That sort of omission suggests that the consequences should extend upward from Judd and into the AJC’s editing ranks.
The university might feel vindicated by the paper’s corrections, but the brouhaha does leave a critical question unanswered: How many players actually fit the criteria laid out by the AJC? Certainly the program would have a pretty good idea, so we asked. “Thanks for the email but we have no comment at this time,” wrote Felton.
