Mainstream Media Never Has to Say It's Sorry

Howard Kurtz has it right:

Everyone, including Don Imus, agrees that the remarkable women of the Rutgers basketball team were unfairly maligned by his racial slur.

But what about the living hell visited on three young men from the Duke lacrosse team? In all the coverage of the sexual assault charges that were finally dropped last week, very few have talked about how the media slimed them.

That miscarriage of justice was aided, abetted and amplified by a media that unfairly turned the men into a national symbol of pampered, out-of-control student-athletes. Prosecutor Mike Nifong might lose his law license over the botched case, but the media never get disbarred.

Imus repeatedly apologized for calling the Rutgers women "nappy-headed hos," and a national uproar prompted CBS Radio and NBC News to pull the plug on his program. But where is the apology to David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann from news organizations that launched a classic feeding frenzy based on one woman's shaky allegations? Even Nifong has said he is sorry.

Read the whole thing.