blogger interrupted

Here’s how the PD reported in today’s print edition how it screwed up reporting the death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones, in a piece with no byline.  Emphasis mine.

The newspaper based the report on several trusted sources, who described Tubbs Jones as either dead or brain dead. In Ohio, people are considered legally dead when doctors declare them brain dead.

Tubbs Jones’ doctors, however, said at a mid-afternoon news conference that her brain had “very limited brain function” following the bursting of an aneurysm in an inaccessible part of her brain. 

So according to this explanation, the PD had information that STJ was EITHER dead OR brain dead.  From this, it appears the PD flipped a coin and up came DEAD, based on this notion of the legal definition of DEAD in Ohio.  

This is profoundly irresponsible.

Even if you accept this notion that the PD gets to make a quasi-legal determination of death based on unnamed sources who give the PD an option of either dead or brain dead, for the PD to even have a leg to stand on, one of their sources must have been a doctor making such a “declaration”.  

That’s unlikely, in fact, impossible.  Even the most liberal understanding of Ohio law would not include in the definition of “declaration” an unnamed sourcing to a newspaper.  That’s no declaration, not for public policy, and certainly not in fact, given that literally a half hour later a doctor declared her alive, in public.  

So what exactly did the PD do?  According to their own account, they took a leap.  The PD had unnamed sources telling them to choose either dead or brain dead, then the PD chose dead, because of some legal mumbo jumbo about the definition of death in Ohio, whose PD-asserted requirements (doctor’s declaration) were not even met.  

I don’t even think a blogger would presume to declare someone dead based on this.  If they did, they would certainly report it as “rumor” or speculation.  Most bloggers I know inform people when they are reporting something that isn’t confirmed.  The PD didn’t report the death in this manner.  To the contrary, they reported a death that had not yet occurred as fact, based on information that any blogger, let alone any average non-blogging humanoid, would certainly not have accepted as fact.  

Did the doctor say she’s dead?  No?  Then she’s not dead.  That’s how any family member would react, out of hope, out of love, or mere desperation.  The PD couldn’t even muster this level of humanity.

I got a little flak yesterday from some people who took objection to my making fun of the fact that the entire political establishment in Ohio was ghoulishly waiting for this news to the point of comedy.  But it seems like the ghoul leading the charge was the PD.  The PD couldn’t even wait for someone to declare her dead, they declared her dead themselves.

The PD takes a lot of hits on this blog, and others, but this one is astounding even to me.  It reveals a level of unprofessionalism, shoddy editorial, shoddy reporting, shoddy decision-making, and stunning irresponsibility that even the PD’s toughest critics would never assume to be true.  Someone should pay a price for this.  A lot of people were hurt yesterday by the PD making this ridiculous calculation.

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