Dear Editor,
In an article published on the front page of your Sept. 27th edition, the Lake Oconee News referenced allegations made “(i)n an anonymous letter sent to the mayor and council” by “city employees.”
While the article contains many details allegedly contained in the letter and many alleged quotes from it, there is no indication of any verification of even the existence of the letter, much less of its contents. It is worth noting that the Lake Oconee News will not publish anonymous letters to the editor, yet somehow, it is okay for the newspaper to write an entire “news” article on the basis of an anonymous letter.
Personnel issues are handled by the mayor and council in executive session. If the city had received a letter like the one described in the article, it would not have been available to the public.
The Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics provides that journalists should “(t)ake responsibility for the accuracy of their work” and “(v)erify information before releasing it.”
The newspaper has failed in this regard. The reading public is left to wonder about the source of the information.
A journalist should identify sources clearly. The SPJ’s Ethics Committee’s position paper on anonymous sources says journalists should use unnamed sources only as a last resort: “To protect their credibility and the credibility of their stories, reporters should use every possible avenue to confirm and attribute information before relying on unnamed sources.”
The article reports extensively on an admitted coincidence, where a claimed interviewee draws a connection between installing Fleet Management Devices in the spouse’s City-owned work vehicle, of which the interviewee appears to disapprove, and problems with a home internet network. (Fleet management is a good, cost-saving measure. See the State of Georgia’s program at https://doas.ga.gov/ fleet-management.)
The article goes into exhaustive detail regarding the anonymous reporting of [?] a realtor’s firing by her broker some years ago in some other city (?). The disgruntled and fired realtor is quoted extensively regarding what other people told her, but there is no evidence that any of the quoted comments were verified.
The article is rife with unsubstantiated criticisms, which, in our opinion, led this paper, either wittingly or unwillingly, to publicize a disparaging and possibly libelous rumor designed to put the city manager in a bad light. One can only speculate regarding the motivation of the unnamed source of the story. We are confident that the city conducted a thorough background check before hiring our city manager, and that any true issues precluding hiring would have been found. The reading public deserves better, and the Lake Oconee News can do better.
Sincerely, the undersigned, residents of Madison who are not afraid to sign our names, Celia Murray, Walter Murray, Elizabeth Bell, and James Orr