Death by Journalism?: One Teacher's Fateful Encounter with Political Correctness

Bledsoe's analysis of a journalist with an all-too-typical axe to grind is a case study consistent with Bernard Goldberg's "Bias". A North Carolina history buff, well-versed in local Civil War details, stands accused of offering a racist course at a community college.Along the way, Bledsoe surfaces these problems, most of them well-known to the public yet blind spots to mainstream journalists:1. Assignment of stories is not based on an objective pursuit of the news. Rather, they reveal the well-documented liberal biases and desire to sensationalize from even the hometown or 'local' paper.2. Many journalists want to write something that gets them attention from their peers. There is more ego and entertainment than education or integrity in such people.3. "Quotes" in articles are not always the real words of the person to whom they are attributed. And paraphrases are even worse.4. Once a story is printed, it takes on a life of its own, often picked up uncritically by other media outlets. This multiplies the injury.5. The truth is no defense against a reckless, opinionated journalist.After the death of the instructor, with a case of libel in the works, there was little reason to show the videotapes of the class to the public. Perhaps that would have helped. But it is not an obligation of the person who organized the class.Apply this same lens to works like Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and dimed" and it becomes apparent why surveys show that Americans distrust journalists and why good people avoid speaking to them. In fact, there comes a time when the word "journalist" takes on a life of its own, far away from the profession. Sure, there are many hardworking, honest, journalists with integrity but as Harold MacMillan once said, the purpose of an education is to help you detect when a man is "speaking rot". Bledsoe found the rot.

Whether you're liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, the one thing we all have in common as Americans is the right of free speech. Over the decades extremists on both sides - liberals and conservatives - have tried occasionally to intimidate or even oppress those who dare to hold different ideas from their own. The Salem Witch Trials and the infamous "Red Scare" inspired by Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950's are just two of the better-known examples. In "Death by Journalism", Jerry Bledsoe, the bestselling author of true crime books such as "Bitter Blood" and "Blood Games", takes aim at a case of "political correctness" run amok in his own hometown. A native of rural Randolph County, North Carolina, in the middle of the state, Bledsoe has retained strong ties to his native region. He once worked for the Greensboro News and Record, which serves nearby Randolph County and which is one of the state's largest daily newspapers. Although Bledsoe enjoyed working for the paper years ago, he argues in this book that the N & R - like so many other papers across the nation - has been taken over by people who wish to shove their own political views down everyone else's throats, and who care little for the "old-fashioned" notions of fairness and journalistic ethics. In "Death by Journalism" Bledsoe exposes a truly frightening story - that of Jack Perdue, an ordinary, well-meaning, middle-class fellow who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A local historian and Civil War buff, Perdue also happened to be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a Civil War "re-enactors" group dedicated to "preserving Southern heritage" as it related to the war. Although the SCV has been controversial, Bledsoe proves beyond all doubt that Perdue was no racist, but simply a guy who loved Civil War history and loved talking about the battles, the armies of both sides and the generals who led them. The trouble started when Perdue was hired by the local community college to teach a course in Civil War history. However, before long an ambitious and politically-correct reporter for the News & Record went to the class unannounced. According to the students, as well as Perdue, the reporter got into a shouting match with some of the students and angrily left. He then wrote a bogus article for the News & Record in which he accused Perdue of defending slavery and claiming that slaves were "happy" on Southern plantations, and other racist comments. Bledsoe, through interviews with students who took the class and college administrators, and through an examination of the course syllabus and Perdue's lecture notes, proves beyond a doubt that Perdue never taught that slavery was justified (he actually said the opposite), nor made any of the other claims the N & R reporter accused him of. But the News & Record's vendetta didn't stop there. Columnists for the N & R ridiculed the entire county, claiming that Perdue's "racist" views (which, of

This is the outrageous story of a newspaper reporter that turned a continuing education class at a small community college into a controversial issue. Mr. Bledsoe, once a reporter on the same paper, has done a great job exposing the distortions and outright lies used by the paper in order get a class taught in the "politically incorrect" way closed down, while at the same time vilifying the school and the instructors. The primary instructor died of a heart attack during the "controversy." It is a book which will raise your blood pressure. Unlike the self congratulatory book by Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Bledsoe leaves himself out of the book almost completely. Whereas Goldberg only told us things we already know, Mr. Bledsoe details a story which few of us know and shows how the media deliberately destorts the "news." A must read for anyone interested in the media.

Jerry Bledsoe takes no prisoners in this expose of journalistic misconduct. This is a must read for anyone who values the First Amendment. As usual Bledsoe?s writing style is superior and his facts are meticulously backed up. BUY IT!