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Here's an issue where I agree with Washington Post columnist and best-selling author Sally Jenkins: We both believe Marion Jones got a raw deal in the Balco investigation. Here's where I take issue with her: Jenkins has written a column that ignores key facts while somehow managing to conflate Jones with the Mitchell investigation, which, in case this isn't obvious, has nothing to do with track and field. I would recommend Jenkins' column for any journalism teacher looking for an example of how a writer can simply ignore facts that aren't convenient to his or her hypothesis. Jenkins believes the fact that Jones is facing prison time for the Balco case shows a racial double standard: Whites who did the same thing Jones did aren't facing prison time, that's Jenkins' basic point.
So what does Jenkins have to say about the fact that the three people who have gone to prison for Balco are white? Nothing. She simply ignores that fact. Read the whole column, and notice the names "Victor Conte," "Patrick Arnold" and "Greg Anderson" don't appear anywhere. I guess it could have damaged her thesis that the Balco investigation is fueled by racism if she had bothered to mention Conte, Arnold and Anderson.
I feel badly for Marion Jones. I'd prefer not to have my tax dollars going toward investigating and imprisoning her. But I'm not going to claim that she's been treated worse than white people in the same situation, because she hasn't.
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