Calling Bullshit on the Dispatch and Skybus

Ben Marrison, editor of the Columbus Dispatch wrote in his column this weekend that the Dispatch knew in advance of Skybus' announcement that they were going to close immediately last Friday. As it turns out the Dispatch knew far enough in advance that they were able to place a reporter on the last outbound plane, knowing full well that the people on the plane who weren't flying home were going to be stranded.

Now, if this weren't bad enough, a subsidiary of Dispatch Printing Co. is an investor in the airline, a fact that the Dispatch simply got tired pointing out in their online content (electrons are costly, you know) and buried in this remote corner of their site.

The Dispatch, faced with this conflict of interest, took the easy road, writing softball stories on the airline, and even letting one of their business writers write a blog about airline travel. Through the process of the Skybus collapse, CEO resignation, COO resignation and all, it didn't seem like they were doing much hard work on reporting the state of the airline. Even afterward, their coverage sheds little light on what went wrong.

Strangely, they chose not to send the airline blogger on the mission to Florida, and have her blog her adventures purchasing tickets back to CMH.

Now, Marrison is posting some reader reactions to his Sunday column and the Dispatch's reporting in his blog. Of course, none of the hand-picked reactions deal with the fact that the Dispatch's parent company holds a financial interest in Skybus. Marrison keeps his focus on the Dispatch's upstanding decision to respect their anonymous source's insistence on a 9:30PM embargo on the story.

Too bad, so sad for the Dispatch though, as other local news sources broke the news long before the Dispatch was allowed. Hell, I got an email from my mom while sitting in DTW and Twittered it ~40min before the Dispatch's embargo was lifted.

The real question that I want to see answered by Marrison is whether their source had any connection to Wolfe Enterprises or the Dispatch Printing Company, and why on earth they agreed to let this story rot? Had they done harder work on covering Skybus they would have developed sources like those the TV stations obviously picked up to scoop the Dispatch.

UPDATE: Whomever is linking me from the protected blog at owujour350.blogspot.com, common courtesy demands that you open up for your link targets.

Comments

[Laura]

Bob - If you are ever stuck at DTW, give Mike, Tegan, and I a call. We live relatively close to the airport and could give you a break from the dulldrums of the terminal, especially if you are not in the main terminal. You can only people watch for so long.

[zardo]

Check this out - runs on national journalism site:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=141650

[Alvin]

Bullshit is exactly what I thought about the Marrison mea culpa. At least one Skybus pilot had the moral fortitude to alert passengers prior to the official announcement. What were they going to do, fire him?