Something Very Strange

The Gazette has printed a correction of their story from the other day, which stated that the board members had pulled out of a citizens' meeting because they were threatened by members of the recall group. Now the Gazette says:

To our readers: A story that appeared in the Jan. 12 issue of The Gazette incorrectly reported school board member Sharon Cox's reason for missing the Germantown Citizens Association meeting. This version of the story has been corrected.

Previous engagements kept two school board members from attending Monday’s Germantown Citizens Association meeting on the proposed sex education curriculum. The Gazette had earlier reported that threats on an anti-curriculum Web site caused the two board members to cancel their appearances... Group opposed to sex ed pilot briefs GCA

From there it looks like pretty much the same story. Very, very strange.

With my own eyes -- and also on cable TV -- I saw the group's leader, Michelle Turner, apologize to the school board for the threats that came from her group. Anybody who had checked the hateful message board on their web site knows that there was a lot of wild talk, including comments about members of the Board of Education.

There are two odd things here. First, the headline: Group opposed to sex ed pilot briefs GCA. Does this mean that the Germantown citizens held a meeting, and no school board members came, but people from the recall group explained why they don't like the curriculum? That sure isn't what the story's about.

Second, the retraction. They themselves admitted there were threats -- just yesterday, Michelle noted on the Eintstein listserv that "We tried rules of decorum to no avail." Hmmm, now, what would make a newspaper like this back down from a story like that?

Can't wait to see what happens with this one!