When the Local Paper Lies to You About It's Citizens

If everyone remembers I did a story about the Herald lying about Ms Block. I was privy to the emails going back and forth between the editor and Ms Block where she was demanding a retraction
They claimed (or whoever wrote the actual story) that Ms Block had been disbarred (which she hasn’t) for disciplinary sanctions (which she hasn’t) but the most amusing part was that they used the WSBA own website which clearly showed she was suspended (even though she quit the bar) for non payment of fees and no IOLTA account. Suspended and disbarred are two completely different things but that wouldn’t make their lies seem as plausible if they explained that to you. They did manage to edit it a bit though to reflect that ( I keep screenshots)
They also seemed to be quite upset that Ms Block was CC’ing me into the conversation claiming I was nothing more then her “helper”. Isn’t that adorable?
 
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If you read the email string you can see where Mr Pattison claims he has verified their story ( by looking up Ms Block’s Bar History and misinterpreting it)
Yet if you take a look at this you will clearly see that they never even called the WSBA until days after they ran the story. So I guess they must be psychics, all of them.
The WSBA is not going to cover for the Herald: This is the only phone call from them around the time the article was written and around the same time as the article was edited.
 
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I am human, I also operate a paper by myself with the occasional help of community writers, maybe someday we will take advertisers, who knows.
I make mistakes or misinterpret the info I get sometimes but I immediately fix it and explain it to the folks who take a few minutes out of their day to see what I have written because that is where my loyalty lies.
I get no material gains from this endeavor. My first love is to tell the truth and to protect my rights as a citizen of the United States of America, my second is to defend others who can not defend themselves.
I don’t have the same schmoozy relationship with Govt actors as the Herald does, I don’t want that because I am not here to be their PR Department.
When I show up or ask for records they know I am hot on their tail.
My job is not to make them comfortable, my job is to make the public aware of what is going on with their rights and their monies.
So yes I may not be a  college educated “journalist” (as a couple other “journalists” like to point out to me often) but at least I’m not a lapdog.
It really makes me sad that something that had a chance to be a great tool and resource for the public and an avenue to create change has been reduced to National Enquirer tactics.