I am not as resigned as are you regarding this issue.

The public doesn’t have to accept this.

Certainly after the track record there as it relates to hot-button issues.

There has to be a day of reckoning for such an editor employed by an organization requiring a degree of trust from the public.

I know it sounds quaint, but I believe that even rabid partisans should have standards.

To your point, Mr. Vaden to me does not merit the credit of his title as it would appear this ombudsman is nothing more than just another N&O columnist.

This memo was a written message to the N&O staff.

It is now an item which serves as unadulterated proof of the biased way the news at the N&O is analyzed and synthesized behind the scenes.

Pure bile and knee-jerk partisanship.

How will anyone take anything that is critiqued by ombudsman Ted Vaden seriously after this unless they remove this editor?

And I included links to all the blogs and fora discussing this issue.

No one should be surprised this email was sent from upper management to the rest of the N&O staff. There’s a reason all but 3 of the conservatives who were there 7-10 years ago are gone. The animosity given to anyone who doesn’t lean 100 percent left is incredibly too-faced when “diversity” is said to be imporant there.

People here and elsewhere are saying various things about the who, what, why and what happened afterwards at the N&O concerning it.

Two friends who say they’ve called the N&O to discuss the email both say they were told no one there knew anything about it.

“Nobody here would write anything like what you’re describing,” one friend quoted an N&O staffer as saying.

Both friends say they urged the person they were talking to go here to WAW and read the email.

Both friends said they were told: “too busy.”

The N&O needs to issue a statement answering “the ‘W’ matters.”

That’s the least it owes its readers.

As soon as it issues such a statement, we’ll all be in a better position to “continue the conversation.”

I’ll also publish the N&O’s statement in full at my blog.

Tomorrow I plan to post in response to John Hood’s statement further up this thread that “it is entirely inconceivable that John Drescher wrote the idiotic memo in question.”

Finally, has anyone here been in touch with N&O public editor Ted Vadan about the email and this thread?

John in Carolina

Thank you for such a complete dissection of the issue inside your link.

Your writing is always superb.

Everyone in the Triangle–and the state!–knows the score regarding the tilt of the paper.

I began to do Linda Blair-esque head twirls during the Duke Lacrosse Hoax having to listen to their excuses for such abominable coverage. (They can thank heavens for the work by Joe Neff on that one.)

The open mendacity is mind-boggling.

I concur with you regarding Drescher.

He’s a good guy who is surrounded by a few editors and colleagues who will never get the Don Imus treatment for their bigotry.

And they operate securely within that realm.