Thursday, October 15, 2009

Croydon Guardian The Kerchers’ Hometown Paper Continues To Report Objectively

Posted by The Machine


Click above for the factual report. The Croydon Guardian has posted way over 100 stories and regular readers will be among the best-informed in the UK.

The Croydon Guardian was the first newspaper anywhere to mention True Justice For Meredith Kercher, which helped put TJMK on the map in November of 2008.

It is also good to see the journalist Kirsty Whalley doing what so many journalists covering the case have failed to do, namely sticking to the facts. No spin. She writes a balanced account and is not afraid to unequivocally state that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade of the knife and Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was on Meredith’s bra clasp.

It’s no secret that Amanda Knox’ family and supporters have tried to exert a stranglehold over the media and angrily control what journalists can and cannot write. So it’s refreshing to read an article in a small local paper that hasn’t been hijacked for once by Curt Knox, Edda Mellas, Anne Bremner or Doug Preston.

Incidentally, Anne Bremner needs to prep up on Italian law after getting a basic fact wrong in a recent interview on ABC News when she claimed that the Italian legal system has eight jurors and two judges. Bremner seems to have the unfortunate habit of messing up whenever she’s interviewed about the case.

Who can forget her stridently analyzing entirely the wrong crime scene on NBC last year?

The editors of two of the newspapers in Seattle - the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the West Seattle Herald - could also learn a thing or two from reading Kirsty’s article. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will not now allow any of its readers to comment about the case - something that online reporter Monica Guzman was commendably unhappy about.

Italy has been portrayed as being a backward country by elements in the US media and especially by a vociferous minority in Seattle. Perhaps the people of Seattle should be more concerned about being denied the right of freedom of speech, a basic constitutional right, by one of their main newspapers.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s readers deserve to know whether Amanda Knox’s family was behind the decision to ban all comments about the case. It has already been well-documented on TJMK that the Seattle-Post Intelligencer hosts a strident and highly inaccurate “reader’s blog” which has had a record of trashing poor Meredith and her silently-grieving family.

The West Seattle Herald hasn’t fared much better with bumbling reporter Steve Shay covering the case. Shay’s pieces are more like Knox family newsletters than newspaper articles. Shay landed The West Seattle Herald in hot water by making unfounded comments about Mignini, which resulted in Mignini suing the newspaper

If it relies on its own local paper, Croydon essentially knows the truth of what is going on. And Seattle unfortunately doesn’t if it relies on its own dismal reporting.

Posted by The Machine on 10/15/09 at 12:41 AM in News media & movies,  Excellent reporting,  Knox-Marriott PR

Comments

The West Seattle Herald is a neighborhood newspaper. Steve Shay, the reporter who has been focusing on the Knox and Mellas angle, has ties to the FOA. The good news is that he and his newspaper are of no consequence whatsoever. There are many neighborhood newspapers in Seattle, several of them owned and operated by the same family. Seattlites read them for news about bake sales, senior activities, school sports and other very local issues. I doubt anyone reads them for “news” about the trial in Perugia.

As for the Seattle PI, it folded its last print copy months ago and now has an online only edition that is scaled back considerably. Many of its staff were let go, of course. To its credit, and unlike its surviving rival (The Seattle Times), it has been working with a journalist who is based in Italy, fluent in Italian, and present at every court session. That is far, far better than what even the national media have attempted to provide. The fact that comments are not allowed is both good and bad, in my opinion. Given the way some very vocal local supporters have hijacked the comments sections when they were allowed, I can’t say the PI’s decision is such a bad thing. A particular individual posted a blown-up photo of me in the comments section below an article on the case, and also wrote posts using my moniker. If the PI’s decision to disable comments WAS based on pressure from the Knox and Mellas families, or from the FOA spokesperson (a lawyer who has ties to the Seattle papers), or from the PR firm, then this should be investigated and exposed.

If the PI deserves criticism, it would be due to its handling of Candace Dempsey’s reader blog, which is now devoted entirely to promoting the FOA-inspired defense view of the case. Many very astute and honest posters have been banned or have eventually walked away in disgust over Dempsey’s capricious and selective delete habits, her shaky grasp of the facts, her constant spin, etc. The fact that her few regular posters all appear to be members of her own family, members of the Knox/Mellas families and their inner circle of friends, members of the FOA and one or two members of the lunatic fringe only makes her endeavor more ludicrous. This is patently obvious to most Seattlites. In case the foregoing list gives the impression that lots of people post on Dempsey’s blog, let me set the record straight: there’s lots of overlap. The PI appears not to notice what’s going on there. Why is that? Could it be that the PI realizes that Dempsey is widely perceived as a partisan with an agenda, such that her reader blog has become marginal and therefore not worth the bother of shutting down. It may come up in Google searches, but most sane people who are directed there via Google quickly understand that they are in a 24-7 spin cycle.

Posted by Skeptical Bystander on 10/15/09 at 05:45 PM | #

Am I mistaken, or are “they” more silent than usual since the refusal to have new DNA testings???

I was expecting a big show, but it seems very calm, isn’t?

Posted by Patou on 10/15/09 at 06:18 PM | #

What did I just say??? Amanda’s parents will be tonight on Larry King!!!

Posted by Patou on 10/15/09 at 07:42 PM | #

Edda Mellas and Curt Knox are appearing on Larry King’s programme tonight at 9.00pm:

http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live/

You can e-mail your questions here:

http://edition.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.lkl.html

I hope people e-mail Larry some pertinent questions to ask Curt and Edda. Usually presenters are too scared to ask Curt and Edda any meaningful questions.

Posted by The Machine on 10/15/09 at 08:09 PM | #
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