Sill Out

A national radio network under investigation by the New York State Attorney General for allegedly funneling $800,000 of federal tax dollars from a charity into their own pockets, isn't national news.

One of the two largest newspapers in North Carolina is apparently unable to generate its own original reporting.

What an interesting carnival Melanie Sill runs at the News & Observer.

Sill is the executive editor and senior vice president for news at the Raleigh, NC News & Observer who made the ill-advised decision to try to bluff blogger John in Carolina about the Air America Radio/Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club scandal. John, as we see here, is polite, but doesn't suffer fools lightly.

The real interest in this story developed for me with this comment from the N&O's Sill yesterday about the Air America scandal:

"We've checked our news services in recent days and do not find this story... if a story is reported and distributed we will look at publishing it."

This was either an untruthful response, or executive editor and senior vice president for news Melanie Sill was grossly incompetent. As a response, a deluge of relevant links poured in from readers, citing sources such as the NY Sun, NY Post, Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, The Oregonian, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, and Investor's Business Daily, among other sources in mainstream media outlets across the country.

In addition to mainstream media outlets, weblog search site Technorati.com has no less than ten pages of results for "Air America scandal." Google News reports 288 stories (and growing) on "Air America," and the majority of recent posts are about the brewing scandal not the programming.

The story has progressed so far, in fact, that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer started an enquiry into the scandal on August 6, and Melanie Sill's news sources "do not find the story?" It seems like the News and Observer should be considering a management shakeup in the news division if this is indeed the case.

Sill started back-pedaling furiously on her N&O blog today:

Thanks for all the interest: sarcasm and barbs duly recorded. Let me clarify: I found the same stories on Air America that you all mention a couple days ago in Internet searches and by using Factiva, a paid service we use for research. I've asked the Associated Press to move a story and mentioned the interest among some local readers. So far this investigation has been reported as a local story in New York.

To publish stories from other publications, we must have rights to them through the news services to which we subscribe.

I don't feel overly defensive about this, so carry on. There are many, many stories in publications all over America that don't gain national distribution. The advantage of the Internet is that people can find these stories themselves, and of course point them out to us, which you all have.

Sill now claims that yesterday she "checked our news services in recent days and do not find this story," but today she says that, "I found the same stories on Air America that you all mention a couple days ago in Internet searches and by using Factiva, a paid service we use for research" [emphasis added].

The technical term for someone who says one thing, and knows that thing to be false escapes me at the moment, but I do think it has something to do with pants being on fire, doesn't it Editor Sill?

Sill then makes two related, weak, and weaseling attempts to justify that fact that they are not running the story.

First she claims:

So far this investigation has been reported as a local story in New York.

I'd like to introduce Melanie Sill to a site on the Word Wide Web called www.airamericaradio.com/. Cleverly hidden in the masthead is a message proclaiming "Air America Radio. 69 Stations Nationswide!"

Even if you knew nothing of them before (which I doubt) their readily accessible web site shows immediately that Air America is a national network, if a rather pathetic one. Even a cursory examination of the story presented so far shows that the important issue is that a national radio network obtained approximately $800,000 from a charity funded by your federal tax dollars. This story could not be much more national. A “local story?” You'll have to come up with a story of your own more credible than that, Mrs. Sill.

Her second excuse was even more anemic:

To publish stories from other publications, we must have rights to them through the news services to which we subscribe.

Madam, you are the executive editor and vice president of news for one of the two largest newspapers in North Carolina. If you are unable to conduct or direct original reporting with all the considerable news-gathering resources you have at your disposal, I think it is time for you to consider another line of work.

Note: John in Carolina, who broke this story, has his latest post online.