Watchdog Institute demands correction; we respond
Because the majority of our coverage of the Watchdog Institute’s Nov. 29 article on San Diego County sex offenders has happened on this blog, it’s appropriate, then, to post a clarification that ran in this week’s print and online versions of CityBeat:
Clarification
Regarding CityBeat’s coverage [“The Front Lines,” Dec. 9; www.lastblogonearth.com] and criticism [“Editorial,” Dec. 16] of the story about sex offenders and Jessica’s Law, written by the Watchdog Institute and published in the Nov. 29 issue of The San Diego Union-Tribune, Watchdog executive director Lorie Hearn has asked us to correct the record on two points. Here is our response:
Kelly Davis erred when she wrote in a Dec. 15 blog post that Watchdog Institute reporters didn’t call the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or the state Attorney General’s office before going to press. What Davis should have said, as she did earlier in the same blog post and also in her Dec. 9 story, was that there was “no indication” that Watchdog reporters called CDCR or the AG’s office—no officials from either agency were quoted in the story. Hearn, however, says that officials with both CDCR and the AG’s office were interviewed.
Secondly, in her Dec. 15 blog post, Davis reported that CDCR had asked the Watchdog Institute to correct its story. Hearn said that CDCR requested only a minor statistical correction regarding the percentage of registered sex offenders on parole. Hearn told us that CDCR had no major “beef” with the story. That’s not what CDCR tells us, however. While a spokesperson confirmed that he made an official request for a correction on the statistic, he also said that he told Hearn that he had concerns about the overall tone of the Watchdog story, the impression it left readers with regarding how Jessica’s Law is being enforced and how Watchdog reporters used data to arrive at their conclusions.
We strive to correct ourselves when we make errors. The Watchdog Institute can’t make the same claim. Even though our criticism of the Watchdog story is backed up by CDCR, the AG’s office, the Governor’s office, the legislators who wrote Jessica’s Law and the legal brief filed by state lawyers in a pending state Supreme Court case, Hearn has refused to correct or clarify her institute’s reporting, saying only that it was based on the institute’s interpretation of Jessica’s Law. We’ve yet to find an expert who believes the Watchdog Institute story was accurate.
The fact remains: The Watchdog Institute’s assertion that 70 percent of registered sex offenders in San Diego County are violating state law by living too close to schools and parks is false. Fully 100 percent of sex offenders who are subject to Jessica’s Law are in compliance.
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In my defense, following are relevant portions of the e-mail conversation that led me to believe that CDCR was going to ask the Watchdog Institute for a correction of the assertion that 70 percent of registered sex offenders are violating state law:
My e-mail to CDCR spokesperson Gordon Hinkle:
In the U-T story, they applied the law to all RSOs in San Diego County—-in other words, they made no distinction between those paroled prior to Nov. 2006 and those paroled after. That was their major mistake. So, CDCR has contacted them about that?
His response:
I am not sure we have specifically on this article because response was being handled by our regional public information officer not my office here in Sacramento. I definitely will find out though if they have been corrected on that as of yet or not and let you know as soon as I can.
Follow-up response:
Hi Kelly, I was checking with Jerome and our Parole Division myself to see if they had chance to correct them already. I can assure you that if they have not already, we definitely will.
And then a couple days later:
Hi Kelly, please be assured I did correct them already earlier this week on the differences the Department had with their November article.
