On March 12, 2009 the DP published an article by Mary Lou van Deventer condemning one Jim Sinkinson for sending a letter to DP advertisers, apparently asking them to cancel their ads in the paper.  It is entirely possible that Mr. Sinkinson drew some of his facts from this website.  After all, we are here for anyone who wishes to tune in.  However, van Deventer makes the following erroneous statement:  “Mr. Sinkinson also manages a website called entirely devoted to attacking the Daily Planet.” 

There is an apparent “typo” in the above quote, but it is not of our doing.  Obviously, “DPWatchDog.com” was intended to be fit between the words “called ________ entirely.”  We believe that O’Malley took a red pen to any mention of our website.  Some free speech advocate she turns out to be!

More, the editor of DPWatchDog.com is in constant contact with Ms. O’Malley, and O’Malley knows very well that our editor is not Jim Sinkinson.  The reason that we are in contact with O’Malley is that we have given her every opportunity to find errors in our work.  We wish to bend over backwards in an effort to be fair to her.

O’Malley also knows that our stated position is that we seek the reform of the DP, not its destruction.  So why would Sinkinson, if he worked here, simultaneously advocate reform on this website and destruction in a letter?  In sum, O’Malley knows quite well that Sinkison is not a contributor to DPWatchDog.com, or if she doubted it, she could easily have checked with us.  Instead, we believe that she knowingly allowed a false statement to be published, and then censored it for good measure.

Is this journalism?

As soon as DPWatchDog.com brought this matter to the attention of Becky O’Malley, the online edition was changed.  We do not know whether O’Malley also intends to publish a correction in the paper edition.  We are glad that O’Malley is listening to us, but we are wholly unsatisfied with O’Malley’s explanation.  She wrote us that  “a typo or spell check substitution changed ‘mentions’ to ‘manages’.” 

Here, again, is the paragraph as it appeared in the print edition:

“Mr. Sinkinson also manages a website called entirely devoted to attacking the Daily Planet. Does he pay himself to operate it? Is he a volunteer?"

Here is how O’Malley revised this for her online archives:

"Mr. Sinkinson also mentions a website entirely devoted to attacking the Daily Planet. Does he pay himself to operate it? Is he a volunteer? "

If the sole problem was caused by a spell checker why is the word "called" also eliminated?  Did the spell checker erroneously insert "called" into the original?  And then what possible sense would it make to add "does he pay himself to operate it? Is he a volunteer?" if Sinkinson merely mentions a website?  We all mention websites in our daily discourse, without the suggestion that by referring to a website we must be on its payroll.  The paragraph, therefore, makes perfect sense if one uses the word "manages" and little sense if one uses the word, "mentions."  Moreover, we have tried various misspellings of "mentions" and none of them brought up the suggested correction, "manages."  The words, after all, share only a first and third letter. 

We here at DPWatchDog.com suspect a cover up.  Do you?