Howard Kurtz has a good piece in Today’s Washington Post about the mainstream media coverage of the Duke case as it relates to Imus:



“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.”


Read the full article here.


Also, I hope everyone caught 60 Minutes last night for interviews with the innocent Duke players and A.G. Roy Cooper.  If you missed it, a transcript is up here.  Rape is a serious crime, but as this case showed, rape allegations can be a serious weapon.  David Evans, understanding this point, ended the interview on a somber note:


“Asked if this is over, David Evans tells Stahl, ‘I don’t think it really will ever be over. No matter what, you can try to move on, but rape will always be associated with my name. Innocent might be a part of that, but when I die, they’ll say, “One of the three Duke lacrosse rape suspects died today. He led a life and did this, but he was one of the three Duke lacrosse rape suspects.”‘”


Read the full transcript here.