Caution,Caution

One of many reasons we need editors, the inaccurately rendered reference to an earlier story. This happens all the time, on TV and on blogs. I don’t know if this made it into print; both from the same paper:

Blog: Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly[said?] this afternoon that Ms. Lowery struck Ms. Stein with the exercise stick six or seven times after a torrent of verbal abuse from Ms. Stein.

News story:Ms. Stein “used profanity and derogatory language and waved the yoga stick at her,” Mr. Kelly said, summarizing Ms. Lowery’s admission. “Lowery said she grabbed the yoga stick from Stein’s hands and struck her with it.”

the "Kelly said LOWERY said" would seem rather important, no?

And that's utterly separate from the question of whether so quickly jumping on the bad-boss-poor-assistant bandwagon is a good idea. It seems to me that presumes certain facts not in evidence, as they say on TV law shows. Even assuming that in this case, the suspect is telling the truth, should we in the press, in effect, take sides?

In a brief detour out of the newsroom earlier in my life, I worked for a while for a woman who had fled the Soviet Communists. She came from a certain class, apparently, which most of us lowly Americans wouldn't ever be able to join. She hauled me in and lectured me one day when I referred to a politician as a fascist (a generic fascist, to be sure), in a very insulting manner. And she was a drama queen. So I have plenty of sympathy for an abused worker. I just don't know that this blog item is legitimate fodder for a mainstream newspaper when the dead woman isn't even in the ground.