No retraction due

The paper had not been out long last Wednesday when ex-commissioner Doug Sheppard called, angry about the “lies” he said The Leader had printed about him and demanding a “front page retraction.” When asked to be more specific about the “lies” he was referring to, he quoted from the story about his guilty plea to charges of using his public office for personal gain. While not disputing that he had used community work release workers to provide labor for his lawn care business, he said he never used the workers on his own property as the story stated.

Assistant District Attorney Bill Veitch of Jefferson County, who was prosecuting the case against Sheppard before Sheppard entered his guilty plea, was read the story and said it was absolutely correct. Assistant District Attorney Amy Newsome of Randolph County also confirmed its accuracy. Several people, including fellow commissioners, were present when Sheppard admitted to having used community service workers to mow his own lawn. Several expected to be subpoenaed to swear to this in court had the guilty plea not been made.

This is not the first time someone caught violating the law has tried to blame the news media for their troubles. In this twisted logic, if they can discredit the local newspaper that reported their misdeeds, it somehow absolves them of their actions.

What it actually does is focus attention on their troubles for much longer than necessary when what they should be doing is accepting that they made mistakes and moving on.

If we make unintentional mistakes in reporting, we’ll correct them if we can determine that the information we reported was wrong. In this case, however, it’s the word of the accused against the word of many. We’ll go with the latter. No retraction is due.