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Death by Journalism: One Teacher's Fateful Encounter With Political Correctness

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This is the outrageous story of a newspaper reporter that turned a continuing education class at a small community college into a controversial issue. Mr. Bledsoe, once a reporter on the same paper, has done a great job exposing the distortions and outright lies used by the paper in order get a class taught in the "politically incorrect" way closed down, while at the same time vilifying the school and the instructors. The primary instructor died of a heart attack during the "controversy." It is a book which will raise your blood pressure. Unlike the self congratulatory book by Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Bledsoe leaves himself out of the book almost completely. Whereas Goldberg only told us things we already know, Mr. Bledsoe details a story which few of us know and shows how the media deliberately destorts the "news." A must read for anyone interested in the media.

Jerry Bledsoe takes no prisoners in this expose of journalistic misconduct. This is a must read for anyone who values the First Amendment. As usual Bledsoes writing style is superior and his facts are meticulously backed up. BUY IT!

Bledsoe's analysis of a journalist with an all-too-typical axe to grind is a case study consistent with Bernard Goldberg's "Bias". A North Carolina history buff, well-versed in local Civil War details, stands accused of offering a racist course at a community college.

Along the way, Bledsoe surfaces these problems, most of them well-known to the public yet blind spots to mainstream journalists:

1. Assignment of stories is not based on an objective pursuit of the news. Rather, they reveal the well-documented liberal biases and desire to sensationalize from even the hometown or 'local' paper.
2. Many journalists want to write something that gets them attention from their peers. There is more ego and entertainment than education or integrity in such people.
3. "Quotes" in articles are not always the real words of the person to whom they are attributed. And paraphrases are even worse.
4. Once a story is printed, it takes on a life of its own, often picked up uncritically by other media outlets. This multiplies the injury.
5. The truth is no defense against a reckless, opinionated journalist.

After the death of the instructor, with a case of libel in the works, there was little reason to show the videotapes of the class to the public. Perhaps that would have helped. But it is not an obligation of the person who organized the class.

Apply this same lens to works like Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and dimed" and it becomes apparent why surveys show that Americans distrust journalists and why good people avoid speaking to them. In fact, there comes a time when the word "journalist" takes on a life of its own, far away from the profession. Sure, there are many hardworking, honest, journalists with integrity but as Harold MacMillan once said, the purpose of an education is to help you detect when a man is "speaking rot". Bledsoe found the rot.

Whether you're liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, the one thing we all have in common as Americans is the right of free speech. Over the decades extremists on both sides - liberals and conservatives - have tried occasionally to intimidate or even oppress those who dare to hold different ideas from their own. The Salem Witch Trials and the infamous "Red Scare" inspired by Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950's are just two of the better-known examples. In "Death by Journalism", Jerry Bledsoe, the bestselling author of true crime books such as "Bitter Blood" and "Blood Games", takes aim at a case of "political correctness" run amok in his own hometown. A native of rural Randolph County, North Carolina, in the middle of the state, Bledsoe has retained strong ties to his native region. He once worked for the Greensboro News and Record, which serves nearby Randolph County and which is one of the state's largest daily newspapers. Although Bledsoe enjoyed working for the paper years ago, he argues in this book that the N&R - like so many other papers across the nation - has been taken over by people who wish to shove their own political views down everyone else's throats, and who care little for the "old-fashioned" notions of fairness and journalistic ethics.

In "Death by Journalism" Bledsoe exposes a truly frightening story - that of Jack Perdue, an ordinary, well-meaning, middle-class fellow who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A local historian and Civil War buff, Perdue also happened to be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a Civil War "re-enactors" group dedicated to "preserving Southern heritage" as it related to the war. Although the SCV has been controversial, Bledsoe proves beyond all doubt that Perdue was no racist, but simply a guy who loved Civil War history and loved talking about the battles, the armies of both sides and the generals who led them. The trouble started when Perdue was hired by the local community college to teach a course in Civil War history. However, before long an ambitious and politically-correct reporter for the News & Record went to the class unannounced. According to the students, as well as Perdue, the reporter got into a shouting match with some of the students and angrily left. He then wrote a bogus article for the News & Record in which he accused Perdue of defending slavery and claiming that slaves were "happy" on Southern plantations, and other racist comments. Bledsoe, through interviews with students who took the class and college administrators, and through an examination of the course syllabus and Perdue's lecture notes, proves beyond a doubt that Perdue never taught that slavery was justified (he actually said the opposite), nor made any of the other claims the N&R reporter accused him of.

But the News & Record's vendetta didn't stop there. Columnists for the N&R ridiculed the entire county, claiming that Perdue's "racist" views (which, of course, the reporter had fabricated) were shared by almost all of Randoph County's white population, and that the people of Randolph were all a bunch of backward, ignorant redneck hicks. The story by the reporter was picked up by the Associated Press and printed nationwide and even overseas, causing a firestorm of controversy to descend upon the quiet little community college. Perdue and the school tried to defend themselves, and pointed out the reporter's "lies", but no one in the media even tried to double-check the "facts" in the article. Perdue himself was so stressed and personally devastated by the controversy that he suddenly died of a heart attack - Bledsoe basically accuses the News & Record of indirectly killing him. Given the falsehoods the paper deliberately spread about him, this does not seem to be an unfair assessment. To this day the News & Record has never admitted to a "mistake" in allowing the article to be printed (they did indirectly admit to their guilt when they "disciplined" the reporter for another "problem" several years later), nor has it apologized to the family of the late Jack Perdue. The point of Bledsoe's story is not to defend the Sons of Confederate Veterans, or even to defend Perdue's class (harmless and non-racist though it certainly was), but to point out how a large newspaper with no ethics or standards of fairness can easily subvert the practice of free speech and destroy lives. Whether you're a liberal or a conservative, or simply a concerned citizen, "Death by Journalism" should be considered a "must read" - an engrossing, highly convincing, and very disturbing story that is far more chilling than any of Bledsoe's "true crime" books. Recommended!

My respect for journalism is great as it often gets the truth before us. However, it often does not! As an elected official and one who does "business" with the press on a weekly basis I can assure you that if a reporter has an opinion on an issue and if the reporter's paper is of like mind then many issues do not stand a chance for a fair review. With this in mind I am very excited about Jerry's recent book "DEATH BY JOURNALISM" and what I hope will be a wake up call for journalism and a "free" press!

Jerry Bledsoe shows what happens when journalists misuse their vast power, sometimes by hitting too hard and then other times failing to act at all - - including failing to admit horrible mistakes and not doing much to offset the damage. Every reporter in the world should read this book and have it be a guide to prudent journalism.

As usual, Mr. Bledsoe has done a masterful job in this book.
I could not put it down after I began reading.

With so many needful things that need to be done in this country today, why would anyone with one grain of sense deliberately indulge in such deceitful lying behavior as this reporter did?

No war has a simple reason for it's beginning. Neither did the Civil War. It happened, it's history, and we have to live with it, regardless of our opinion. We have no right to bash people over their opinions on this war, anymore than we would any other war.

What is so frightening about this situation is that the lies traveled like wildfire, completely assassinating the truth.

The young reporter who started this misinformation maelstrom should get a job with the National Inquirer. He would probably go far. And the editor who allowed him to do this, then cover up the truth in such a disgraceful manner, probably learned his craft under Richard Nixon.
Thank you.

Bledsoe does an incredible job detailing the history and background of this media fiasco, including the toll it took on one seemingly honorable man. This is the true story of Jack Purdue, an amatuer civil war historian tapped to teach a community outreach course at a North Carolina community college, and his encounter with an ambitious young newspaper reporter. Bledsoe gives us a great feel for Jack's personal character and how that character was called into question by the reporter, who apparently fabricated much of his news story to further his career. This book should be required reading for every journalism student, not just for the specific lessons on how not to write a story, but to give that student a feel for the power he or she wields because of the public's trust in mainstream media. In the end this reporter's seeming misdeeds may very well have cost Jack Purdue his life. The only reason this book didnt get five stars is that at times it was a bit of chore to get through, and did get bogged down in details. This is not Bledsoe's fault though, as the nature of the subject matter doesn't really lend itself to a page turner of a suspenseful book and some people may really enjoy knowing every detail about this event. One last issue is that there were apparently videotapes of the class that were never released by Purdue, which could have conclusively exonerated him and his class. The fact those tapes were not released to the public (even when Purdue's character was being trashed in the media for something he apparently did not say), nor has Bledsoe seemed to have reviewed them, leaves the reader wondering whether he is getting the full story even from Bledsoe.

Jerry Bledsoe tells the sad tale of a college professor and the community college for which he taught, both maligned by a rogue reporter and an irresponsible newspaper intent on misrepresenting the truth and garnering national attention for themselves. I have mixed feelings about this book; the story itself is certainly interesting and the book is well researched and very well written, but there are some difficulties with the overall content.

My complaints concern the level of detail included in the telling of this sorry media saga. The first 4 chapters (a total of 33 pages) explain the man and college professor Jack Perdue was. However, it also gives a lenghty explanation of Perdue's interest in genealogy and the long dead relatives he discovered and traced through several generations. It also includes information about Perdue's extensive interest in the Civil War, the history of North Carolina, and his participation in the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization. While I appreciate a history of the primary individiuals in a story, this was tedious, boring, and could have been reduced considerably.

Similarly, there was a great deal of information included about the adult education course offered at Randolph Community College that was the source of so much national media attention and controversy. While it is important to know the information taught that became the center of this controversy, there was much additional information about each of the several different class sessions and their individual lesson plans. Never much of a fan of history of any kind, I found all of this mostly unnecessary and incredibly tedious. I did not need an extensive lesson in Civil War history to understand the controversy associated with the course intself.

That being said, Bledsoe did a fine job of researching and writing a story that should cause us all to question the validity of what we read in the newpaper. Bledsoe also humanized Jack Perdue, the students enrolled in the course, and the many college administrators who were unwillingly sucked into the false controversy created by Ethan Feinsilver, a socially inept reporter with a huge chip on his shoulder.

I believe the college's Public Relations representative, Cathy Hefferin, did the college a disservice when she drafted the first written response intended for the media. Instead of stating that what Feinsilver reported was simply untrue and had never been taught, she defended the college's position on education. Hefferin wrote, "Randolph Community College supports an open educational atmosphere where varying views may be presented that are not necessarily the views of the college." To a reader who has no knowledge of the specific controversy beyond what was initially reported by Feinsilver, this sounds like the evasive defense of a guilty party.

It is appalling that Feinsilver was supported throughout the media circus he created by his editors, even when Feinsilver admitted that he had not attended the class about which he reported and had taken a great deal of artistic license in his reporting. It is also frightening that Feinsilver ultimately walked away from a controversy for which he alone is responsible while Jack Perdue suffered a fatal heart attack within the year.

While this is not a True Crime story in the traditional sense, it is a true story about a crime that was ultimately ignored until Bledsoe made an effort to right a wrong. For me, it was a solid 3 star book. If you enjoy history, however, you will probably find it more to your liking and deserving of at least 4 stars.

This is an excellent book by Bledsoe. The research and feel for the subject by Bledsoe make this book one that should be required reading for all journalism students. The abuse of the First Admendment by the Greensboro News & Record in reporting this story is appalling and the editors should take a hard look at themselves.

This book will create a strong sense of outrage by readers when you see how damaging shoddy journalism can be. Bledsoe is to be commended for giving us his side of the story.