You have a right to know why we aren’t publishing the alleged school district texts
By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times
We get letters — or more correctly, it being the 21st Century, we get emails.
Many of late have asked us to keep publishing stories on the Coatesville Area School District and the resignation of Superintendent of Schools Richard Como and Coatesville Area High School Athletic Director James Donato.
We really appreciate your thoughts and comments, your continued encouragement and private emails and calls with information to help us report this story — we can’t thank you enough for your support and input, it’s an editor’s dream to have that sort of relationship with a community.
And yes, we’re aware of the story in The Daily Local News today which publishes excerpts of alleged text messages between school administrators. And while the DLN feels they have enough sourcing and documentation to publish the excerpts, I don’t feel we’ve reached that threshold for The Times.
Maybe it is because they have better sources; maybe its because the folks working the story for the DLN have less months experience as professional journalists than our team has years experience (ironic that the “new media” folks would be the old-school journalists with decades of experience and that the unproven kids would be at the corporate “old media” outlet, I guess).
Look, there’s a high probability that what was published today is correct — and if so, basically, the entire school board needs to resign — we’ve been told many of the same things. But maybe because I was a cub reporter, bureau chief and editor in the 1980s (ironically, again, at a previous version of the company that owns the DLN) and was taught by grizzled veterans who came up in the 1950s, there’s too much supposition, too much false information out there for me to feel like what we have right now should be published.
And this has to be done right. As we feel strongly that there is more to come, much more, to be honest, we have to strive every day to get it dead right. One missed step, one rush to judgment here and we’ll lose creditability and trust. Maybe more importantly, fairness matters, too.
The texts quoted today in the DLN contain terrible, awful comments. And yes, the phone numbers do match known phone numbers of CASD administrators — more than just the two who resigned. Publish this and be wrong, and careers are permanently ruined.
So it has to be absolutely confirmed.
But, while we trust the source that supplied them, we can’t absolutely vouch for their authenticity.
It’s too easy to just create something like that — and even if the source that provided them to us has every reason to think they are legitimate, we need to see what they call in the justice system, a chain of custody, proof of the original source and proof that it wasn’t altered between then and our getting it. I’ve been provided fake documents in the past on other stories — only care and prudence kept me from publishing really wrong stuff.
If the DLN got that, hats off to them.
It would be highly irresponsible to run it, though, without that, as first, it would inflame a community already angry and on-edge and second, be potentially damaging to those implicated, should down the road the document prove to be manufactured.
But again, whatever your take on this issue, a lot of the blame falls on the school board and administration here, which has stonewalled the media (when not blaming it) and the public when it rightfully asks questions. And yes, with each passing day, it becomes more and more apparent that at various times in recent weeks members of the administration and school board have less than honest with us in discussion what they knew and when.
Clearly, our Right To Know requests have been stonewalled without legal merit, begging litigation, which we will likely be forced, unfortunately, to undertake in the coming weeks. I met with our attorney Friday to discuss our plan of action and should have more to report on that in the coming days.
Which, of course, leads to the question of why? What are they hiding, what are they covering up for?
And as much as the texting issue — if accurate — is reprehensible, the answers to those questions may prove shocking.
We will be there to keep asking those questions, we hope you will be, too.
They didn’t get scooped they refused to report on the information they had or they didn’t attempt to find out if it was true or not. Simply to state that we don’t print rumor or speculation is either lazy or they didn’t like the truth.
We obviously did spend a great deal of time attempting to confirm the information (and continue to do so), to prove the excerpts provided to us were genuine and complete. Liking it or not liking it isn’t an issue — but we have to make sure it is the truth.
Coatesville is a cesspool of latent racism. Ever see the movie District 9? Welcome to Pennsylvania’s District 9.
Wow, DLN names sources, quotes text messages. You really got scooped!
You got to be kidding the DLN saw a fastball down the middle and hit a home run for journalism. I am far from a supporter of the DLN but I have to say they followed the sources on this one and broke the story before our local guys, The Coatesville Times which disappoints a lot of us that you guys weren’t all over this first.
I agree.. I prefer this paper and really like the editor, I respect where they are coming from with not wanting to release the texts but this is huge and we know it’s all true! It’s deeper than race ( which they covered everyone, staff, black, women, Arabs, and Hispanics) these men and many others were stealing our hard earned tax dollars and not investing in our children OUR FUTURE!!! There’s more coming as well. Get on it coatesville times!!DLN just posted comments from dept of education, Tim eller, why aren’t you guys putting any of that out there! Do research on the missing money and the fundraiser money, kickbacks, and gray stones closing!!!!
Stay tuned. We have more coming tonight.
I would rather you get it right all the time then get it first. Sometimes innocent people get hurt by a rush to judgement. I am with you Mike get it right not first. In today instant media more wrong information is reported as fact just to get it out there. Also the truth , when found,is not given as much credit as the first report
Thank you for your commitment to journalism and for continuing to ask questions that need to be answered!