On the Wednesday, June 20th edition of the Gazette-Virginian, the top story was the uranium mining committee meeting that happened in Chatham 2 days prior. I’m charging the Gazette-Virginian with laziness because they didn’t send a reporter there to cover it. I’m adding to the laziness charge because they had two stories about the meeting. One of them was from the Danville Register & Bee’s Tara Bozick. That story was used by permission of the R&B and properly credited. It was an objective article which adequately recapped the meeting. Even though the GV used another newspaper’s reporting, it was attributed properly and clearly. I’ve got no problem with that.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, right beside that R&B article was the one I’ve linked to above. It was bylined as “Special To The Gazette” which means “written by somebody else”. I have no idea who wrote that article as it’s not attributed. As you can see, the article is clearly one-sided in favor of the anti-uranium group and had no mention of Virginia Uranium, Inc or the group in favor of the mining. That type of contributed article is fine for a op-ed but even then it would need an attribution of the author and the group that they support.<\/p>\n
As a longtime reporter, Gazette-Virginian editor Paula Bryant knows the ethical guidelines on situations like these and should have done the right thing in either editing the story to make it news-worthy objective or sending it to the op-ed page. She didn’t and that’s a shameful example of laziness and failure to live up to journalistic ethics.<\/p>\n
I wrote the following email to Paula Bryant and Linda Shelton (publisher) on Wednesday night…<\/p>\n
Ms. Shelton & Ms. Bryant:<\/p>\n
I would like to know the sourcing for the article in Monday’s\u00a0 Gazette-Virginian that was headlined “Uranium opponents: Governor\u00a0 sidestepping process to lift ban on mining” that appears on the front page above-the-fold. It was bylined as a generic “Special to the Gazette” which\u00a0 is unclear as to its origin.<\/p>\n
I found the article to be biased in its coverage of the anti-uranium groups beacuse it used leading language to advance the anti-uranium side’s agenda over the pro-mining’s side. I feel an article like that was not objective news coverage and had no place in the news section of your newspaper.<\/p>\n
I look forward to hearing your answer to my inquiry.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,
\nBruce Hedrick
\nSouthsideCentral.com<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I received no reply from either Bryant or Shelton on that email (and still haven’t). I was able to catch Paula Bryant coming out of the Riverstone building Friday morning and asked her if she had gotten my email. She said that she had. When asked if I was going to get a reply, she said “No.” I asked her who wrote the article and she said “You can tell that by reading the first paragraph.”<\/p>\n
That’s shameful, lazy and ethically wrong. Bryant (and by extension the Gazette-Virginian) showed laziness, a lack of journalisitic ethics and borderline contempt to a person that has a legitimate complaint about the writing. This article isn’t about uranium mining, it’s about using somebody else’s biased writing for your newspaper and not attributing the work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you’re going to use a biased article written by a member of a group that has a track record for inflammatory language, you should at least disclose who wrote the article.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[63,17,20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halifax-county","category-mediacentral","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1Yb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10591,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/13\/the-gazette-virgnian-gets-busted-for-plagiarism\/","url_meta":{"origin":7575,"position":0},"title":"UPDATED: The Gazette-Virginian Gets Busted for Plagiarism","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE: We've added the Gazette-Virginian's \"response\" to the article. Somebody finally calls out their lazy \"reporting\"... Choices 180 hosts gospel fest fundraiser (Gazette-Virginian link, paywall may apply unless you break through it.) You'll notice that the article is clearly bylined as... Let's move to the end of the article and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Halifax County"","block_context":{"text":"Halifax County","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/halifax-county\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/8tZAtfN.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4868,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/30\/hey-gazette-virginian-forget-something\/","url_meta":{"origin":7575,"position":1},"title":"UPDATED: Hey, Gazette-Virginian! Forget something?","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"(Originally Published on: Jul 29, 2009 @ 16:49) Like paying your webhosting bill? Nick Elmes designs a nice website for the GV then finds a better job and leaves. They let the website degrade into a bloated mess which is completely useless since they only post the first few sentences.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5425,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/29\/take-off-your-clothes\/","url_meta":{"origin":7575,"position":2},"title":"Take off your clothes!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"September 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, the Gazette-Virginian is nicely asking you to do that... The Gazette-Virginian is hereby charged with the crime of making hilarious typos. Your Honor, the plaintiff wishes to admit Exhibit \"A\" into evidence... The plaintiff rests.","rel":"","context":"In "Halifax County"","block_context":{"text":"Halifax County","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/halifax-county\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7049,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/23\/some-thoughts-about-the-uranium-mining-subcommittee-meeting\/","url_meta":{"origin":7575,"position":3},"title":"Some thoughts about the Uranium Mining Subcommittee meeting","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"On Tuesday night, the Uranium Mining subcommittee of the Coal & Energy Commission held a meeting at Chatham High School where people could comment on the proposed socio-economic study. I was there for Star News to record the early part of the comments, and here's a \"random thoughts\" article about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "OpinionCentral"","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6746,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/11\/hey-paula-you-got-busted\/","url_meta":{"origin":7575,"position":4},"title":"Hey, Paula? You got busted!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Over a year ago, I issued a challenge to the Gazette-Virginian columnists to quit reprinting forwarded emails. Needless to say, they didn't change their ways and this past week, Paula Bryant (the editor) got busted for reprinting copyrighted material. On March 31st, Gazette-Virginian Editor Paula Bryant's weekly column consisted of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6434,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/16\/danville-city-council-rejects-anti-uranium-mining-resolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":7575,"position":5},"title":"Danville City Council rejects anti-uranium mining resolution","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Danville City Council is the latest governing board to reject an attempt at banning something that's not even legal already. Strike FOUR! Now just go away, please. Danville City Council passes on uranium resolution (Note: I was at the work session, but Denise wrote a good article and deserves the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7578,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575\/revisions\/7578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}