Ball and Order

A primer on unethical reporting and the priorities of certain media: Every publication prides itself on thorough, accurate and ethical reporting. A lot of work — and a system of checks and balances— is supposed to be put into place to hopefully ensure that a publisher will NEVER have to issue a correction. If someone takes issue with an article but the publisher has an out because there was some ambiguity, a publisher will take that “out” and do anything to avoid having to publish a correction. Issuing a correction is a black eye to the reporter, certainly. It signals to future editors that she cannot be trusted. But it is also embarrassing to the editors and the publisher, who are forced to admit that they failed at their jobs as well. So now we come to @GretchenVoss64’s agenda-driven hit piece in @BostonMagazine. People ask why someone would not grant an interview to a reporter like her. You don’t grant someone like that an interview because you would be giving an untrustworthy person control over your words. She’s not seeking the truth, she’s advancing her own narrative, irrespective of (and often contrary to) the truth. And given her lack of ethics, she will take a quote from you and publish it out of context to make it appear as though you said something that you didn’t. To try to make you look bad to advance her agenda. As an aside, those dangers are exactly why any criminal defense attorney will advise a client never to speak to the police. I chose not to speak with @GretchenVoss6 because I knew her to be untrustworthy. And sure enough, she was so blinded by her own bias that she took an old quote of mine out of context and made it appear as though I said something that I didn’t. In the process, of course, she unwittingly proved what her intentions would have been had I agreed to speak with her in the first place. And by doing so, she put her magazine in legal jeopardy. Shame on her. You can bet that when @BostonMagazine received my demand for a correction, they panicked. They consulted with their legal department, who advised them that there was no “out.” They recognized that it was one of the strongest defamation claims that could exist, because @GretchenVoss64 acted with actual malice and there was zero defense to what she did. They were loathe to do it but they had no choice. They issued the correction and hoped that would put the issue to bed. I’m told, however, that the print edition still exists. I haven’t decided yet whether to take any further action regarding that clear defamation. In addition, there are many other inaccuracies in her “article” (although I will likely leave it to others to demand those corrections). For now, it is just satisfying — once again — to have exposed corruption.