Media Circus, Part II

An update of sorts regarding the Bob Caldwell scandal has been noted.

It appears an editor working for the Oregonian lost her job for misleading the newspaper over the circumstances surrounding Caldwell's death.  As readers know, Caldwell, 63 and editorial page editor of the paper, died of a heart attack following having sex with a 23-year-old college student.  He had paid for her college expenses for something like a year.

I also should add the link from Willamette Week of how the Oregonian screwed up when it didn't report Caldwell's screwing around at the time of his death.

The erroneous report, as we said at the time, did come from a family friend, one of more than 30 years with the Caldwells, but one who was also a staff member. In hindsight, we should have said that in the Tuesday story and identified her by name. Glanville, however, was consumed with helping Caldwell’s widow and with her own family matters, and we could not talk with her until Wednesday.

Glanville, an assistant editor at The Oregonian, has admitted lying to Killen. She says she regrets it deeply, and she has apologized to the news staff at the paper. You can attribute it to the fog of grief, a sleepless night or the loss of a dear friend. But, while we are used to sources lying to us, it is difficult to swallow when the source is a fellow Oregonian journalist. (You may logically ask what will happen to an employee who lied to us. There will be repercussions, but those will not be discussed publicly.)

I don’t blame Killen. There was no reason or sign that Caldwell’s death was anything other than routine. He had a DUII in his past (which we didn’t report at the time — true, also my call), but nothing else. And, even though journalists are trained skeptics always ready to ask the next question, none of us could have imagined a fellow journalist not telling us the truth.