MEDIA WATCH
Richmond Times-Dispatch won't print a correction
Greg Pearson
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (RTD) is declining to print a correction despite obvious errors it made in a Jan. 26 editorial. That editorial accused the county School Board of trying to hide the harsh reality that the replacement for Clover Hill High School could cost $92 million and not $55 million as first proposed.

"In December 2006, school system leaders informed the public that $55 million would no longer quite accomplish the job," read the editorial. "Officials announced the new amount in mid-December - conveniently in the middle of the Christmas season. The School Board agreed to pony up the extra $37 million at a meeting held just as most people swept up confetti from New Year's celebrations. Both events seemed perfectly timed to receive as little attention and pushback as possible."

Mid-December may have been the time when the daily paper learned about the $92 million price tag, but the Chesterfield Observer first reported the story in our Oct. 18 issue, shortly after school officials acknowledged the higher figure at the Oct. 10 School Board meeting. On Dec. 6, we ran a larger story with the headline "Clover Hill replacement school costs skyrocket."

The daily paper's assumption that Chesterfield residents don't know information until it reports the news is misleading since the Chesterfield Observer has more circulation in the county than the daily paper.

Mistakes by the RTD in the editorial caused School Board Chairman Tom Doland to write a Feb. 1 letter, requesting a correction. When we learned about the controversy, we filed a Freedom of Information request, asking for the letter to the RTD. Caught in the middle, School Community Relations Director Debra Marlow responded to our request, and in a later e-mail to us wrote, "The editorial writer said they would not run a correction but would publish a letter to the editor. He also indicated that they may expand the paper's view [on the subject]."

Which raises the question of why Chesterfield schools should write a letter to the editor when the mistakes were made by the Richmond paper?

And yet another question: Why did the RTD print a Feb. 20 correction about another erroneous editorial on the Richmond City Council and the "so-called living wage?" How does Chesterfield get the same favored treatment?

The solution to this matter is quite simple: check your facts in advance. Someone should have called the Chesterfield school system to find out when it revealed the $92 million price.

That's why we called the editor of the RTD editorial pages, Todd Culbertson, to get his side of the story.

"It is our position that our editorials speak for themselves," responded Culbertson.

Asked if his answer is always, "No comment," he answered, "Yes."

When offered an opportunity to write a letter to the editor in the Chesterfield Observer if he didn't like this column, he said, "We don't write letters to the editor. We print letters to the editor [in our paper]."

Shouldn't all newspapers answer questions - particularly if they don't ask enough questions?