The Emily Pataki Story: Credit Where Credit Is Due
PG of De Novo, in a post entitled Bad Judgment at White & Case and ATL, had this to say about our Emily Pataki coverage:
I'm disappointed to see that someone forwarded this to David Lat, and that he chose to publish it. The July 2006 New York Bar Exam pass list is not yet public, and while I might expect someone online to pick through the list when it is, pointing out people who were known to have taken the bar yet not passed, to publicize a single person's failure and her reaction to it is a particular kind of bad taste that I hadn't expected of either White & Case employees or of Above the Law.
Reprinted below is the comment that we left on De Novo in response:
I actually can't take credit for breaking this story. I actually first learned about it in a mainstream media blog, the WSJ Law Blog:http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/11/14/emily-patakis-email/
But the Wall Street Journal didn't break this story either. The source with the scoop was actually ANOTHER MSM blog, the New York Observer's widely read politics blog, The Politicker:
http://thepoliticker.observer.com/2006/11/first-setback.html
So, PG, please don't hang this all on me just because I'm a blogger (and we bloggers are such easy targets, especially on matters of journalistic ethics). I only touched this story after two MSM organs did -- even though I had the email much earlier.
Of course, once the Wall Street Journal and the New York Observer decided to cover this story -- a story which, you must admit, lies squarely within the territory of Above the Law -- I couldn't just sit on the sidelines.
PG posted a response to our response; if we get around to it, we'll offer our rebuttal later today.
Bad Judgment at White & Case and ATL [De Novo]
(2) Comments
Yeah, it was in bad taste, meanspirited, and pretty much a ridiculous cheap shot at someone who hit a low point outside of the public eye. "Other people are doing it, too," is a fact, not an explanation. I loved UTR and was really excited for this site when it started, but at some point a little bit of judgment needs to kick in around here.
Actually, in the news business, "other people are covering it" IS an explanation. There are many times a news outlet sits on a story and then, when prodded to by the coverage of others, starts covering it.
The Monica Lewinsky story started out this way. It was written about in the tabloids before it hit the more respectable mainstream media outlets. Once the "buzz" reached a certain level, they had no choice but to cover it.
The same goes for the Emily Pataki story. Everyone I know is talking about it. In addition to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Observer, the story appeared on NYLawyer.com and NPR.
So if this is what the MSM is doing with this story, one would expect a gossip blog like ATL to take it several steps farther (or lower, as the case may be).