New York Times Sports Editor: 'I Very Much Regret' Duke Lacrosse Coverage

In March of 2006, when a stripper falsely claimed that she had been raped by Duke lacrosse players, no media outlet spilled more ink detailing the since-disproved allegations than the New York Times.

Nearly two years after the fact, the Times' coverage of the Duke lacrosse case is still often held up as an example of the way the media can run amok and damage the lives of innocent people as a result. So it's not surprising that when Times sports editor Tom Jolly did a Q&A with readers this week, one reader asked this question:

Q. When the Duke Lacrosse "rape" case first erupted, the New York Times sports section was one of the leading cheerleaders for the conviction and slandering of the Duke team as a whole and the three charged players. When the charges imploded, the players exonerated, and Michael Nifong disbarred, the sports section and "pundits" remained steadfastly silent. Since you are the chief editor, one must assume that you led and approved of all the reporting (and non-reporting) and the commentary (however incorrect and one-sided). Question: As the editor of the sports section how do you justify your behavior in toto?

Jolly's answer expressed regret.

Here's Jolly's answer:

A. First, let me clarify that our reporters remained involved in the coverage of the Duke case throughout. The placement of the articles moved into the national section of the paper once it became a court case, as is generally the case with such stories, including the rape cases against Kobe Bryant and Mike Tyson. We've written stories about the team since it was reinstated and covered its run to the title game last season.

As far as our coverage of the case itself, if the essence of your question is whether I feel good about it, the answer is that I very much regret my failure to recognize that we were dealing with a rogue prosecutor and that the university had compounded his bravado by overreacting to the initial reports about the case. I don't recall another instance of a university canceling the season of a team that was a contender for a national championship. Nor do I recall a similar example of a prosecutor launching such an aggressively wrongheaded investigation.

But the bottom line is that I'd do some things differently, and that knowledge gained by hindsight has informed our approach to other stories since then.

There's nothing the Times will ever be able to do to make up for the way it covered the Duke lacrosse story, but acknowledging their mistakes and vowing to change the paper's approach going forward is better than nothing.