This is an update to a post that I wrote yesterday.

Let me start off by saying that sometimes I get feedback on what I write. Usually e-mail. Sometimes face-to-face. Last night/this morning it was different…someone actually called me. I didn’t recognize the number at first, but later found found out afterwards it was through a mutual friend.

I got some complements on what I wrote, but they wanted to know why I stopped where I did.

Truth be told, I was on the Eastside for most of that day. I didn’t have enough time for a more thorough follow-up because of my own schedule.

I spoke to them about what was missing and asked them to forward me some links for verification.

It’s amazing what gets “omitted” in a product put out by “professional” journalists. In this case, The Detroit Free Press’ own Niraj Warikoo.

 

Mr. Warikoo is The Freep’s religion writer, but he does spend a considerable amount of time covering the events in Dearborn. He knows the people living there and what they have done or are doing.

He cannot deny this.

Last week, he wrote an article on the uprising of parents in Dearborn over a flyer promoting an Easter Egg Hunt at a local church.

The first problem with the article in your paper?

It wasn’t parents. It was parent..as in one.

No problem. Just change the headline and hope that no one took a screen shot.

With any luck, this story will be ignored by the national media and everything will quietly go away.

Except Fox News, The Daily Caller and The Blaze had already picked it up (which probably explains why drivers in Chicago and Cincinnati were asking me over the weekend what I knew about this).

With that horse out of the barn, the piece focused on the separation of church and state argument..

But, if this were just anyone on the street, you might have something.

The problem here is that Mr. Moughni is an attorney.

He was involved in the counter-protest to Terry Jones’ rally in Dearborn not that long ago. He has some experience with what the First Amendment actually says.

A person with his education should never have invoked that argument.

Sadly, another fact omitted from the original Freep article.

Now to be fair, The Detroit Free Press did print a follow up piece yesterday evening by staff writer Marlon Walker.

It was a far more balanced article, but squashed the gist of the earlier article.

Writing two articles within days of each other, on the same subject, but with polar opposite details regarding what has really happened should be an embarrassment to any legitimate newspaper.

Mr. Henderson, you would be doing your product a service by explaining to your readers exactly how this was allowed to happen, and what will be done to prevent a similar circumstance from happening in the future.

The region already has enough bad press to go around last week.

We don’t need to people charged with reporting it, to turn around and make things even worse because of shoddy and unprofessional work.