In a story posted on redbankgreen Monday evening, we reported on a possible explanation for the removal of Milton A. Gray IV as a Red Bank-sponsored member of the current class at the Monmouth County Police Academy.
That explanation was pure speculation and gossip. Including it in our story was bad judgment and shoddy journalism. Most important, it was unfair to Gray.
In particular, the last paragraph of the article relied on information included in a comment posted by a reader identifying him or herself as “Bisco.” The comment was available on redbankgreen briefly on Sunday before we saw it and took it down as a borderline violation of our recently instituted comments policy.
But because the author appeared to be writing from a position of inside knowledge, we asked him or her via email to include his real name if he wanted to have it reconsidered. Our policy gives greater weight to comments posted by people willing to identify themselves.
We didn’t hear back from “Bisco.” Meantime, on Monday, we contacted the police department to ask about Gray’s status. The department, through an official, confirmed that Gray was out of the program, but declined to say why.
Shortly thereafter, but before our story was ready for publication, the original comment was reposted, this time under the name “Salina Witten.” We again took the comment off the site, temporarily at least, while we tried to determine if Salina Witten was “Bisco’s” real name.
We never found out. Still, we went ahead and posted our story, citing Bisco’s claim about the reason for Gray’s removal.
Why did we do that? Because we thought it necessary to explain why Gray’s status had even come into question.
No one has asked for or demanded a retraction, but today, someone posted an angry comment about our story. We have taken that complaint to heart, and on reflection, we acknowledge that we violated our own journalistic principals in relying on unverified information from an unknown source.
We apologize to Milton A. Gray IV and to all our readers.
