In this story, a voter suggests that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has made anti-gay comments. NPR has not been able to find any evidence that Wright made such comments. Wright has supported the ordination of gay clergy. He also started a singles group for gay and lesbian members at his church. Our story should have acknowledged this. Link
UPDATE April 11, 2008: Alicia Shepard, the NPR ombudsman, wrote an column that details how this error made it to air. From her piece:
Jason Carlson was driving home listening to All Things Considered (ATC) on March 24 when he heard a gay man say he would not vote for Sen. Barack Obama because the senator’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was anti-gay.
That didn’t gibe with what Carlson, an Evanston, Ill. high school science teacher, knew about Wright. Later, Carlson did a quick Internet search using “Wright” and “anti-gay,” and discovered that what he had heard on NPR was, in fact, wrong. In a piece edited before broadcast, ATC had put something on air without checking to make sure it was correct.
Carlson immediately emailed NPR pointing out how much Wright has done for gays and lesbians. “With the craziness that is already swirling around this campaign, diligence is required on everyone’s part to keep the misinformation to a minimum,” his email said.
Wright has some controversial stands but he is not anti-gay. Wright’s record of outreach to gays and lesbian is extensive and well-documented in the public record.
The three-minute segment that drew Carlson’s ire was filed by veteran public radio reporter Joel Rose, who was reporting on the Obama campaign’s effort to recruit independent voters to register as Democrats for the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. As Independent voter Chuck Aronson was switching to the Democratic party, he said Obama lost his vote because of Wright, whom he mistakenly described as anti-gay.
“That actually really upset me, being a gay man and hearing like anti-gay and anti- all kinds of things,” Aronson said in the ATC piece. “It’s really — you know, I just — it sort of disappointed me that he just, at some point, didn’t get up and go, you know what, I just really don’t want to be a part of it.”
In using this tape in his story, Rose made the kind of mistake even an experienced journalist can make, but shouldn’t: he assumed. He assumed that Aronson knew what he was talking about.
“Chuck (Aronson) was so sure of himself that I got distracted by his enthusiasm,” said Rose in an email. “I’m still glad he was in the story because he helps make the point that not all former independents are planning to vote for Obama. But clearly I should have been more selective about what was in the quote (and what wasn’t).”
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