The Atlanta Journal-Constitution corrected an explosive story about Georgia Bulldogs football. On Wednesday, the esteemed publication announced multiple corrections and dismissed the reporter whose story emerged.
The AJC issued corrections to its recent investigation into Georgia’s handling of sexual abuse allegations against its players & recruits. The AJC also announced that it has fired reporter Alan Judd for violating the organization’s journalistic standards. https://t.co/LNhZUAOCth
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) July 19, 2023
Georgia attorney Michael M. Raeber sent a nine-page letter to the AJC on July 11. Raeber bashed the allegations at the time, saying the story contained “reckless disregard for the truth and its imposition of a damaging narrative unsupported by the facts.”
Evidently, the claims by Raeber proved to be supported. The paper said they investigated all the complaints the university issued in the letter. While they said they “found no instances of fabrications in the story,” the AJC said they discovered two story elements that “did not meet the news organization’s journalistic standards.”
The two elements included being unable to find a substantiated pattern in sexual misconduct allegations against the team and improperly merging two statements made minutes apart by a detective “into a single quotation.”
So while nothing in the story got fabricated, corrections had to be made, and that was enough for the AJC to let longtime writer Alan Judd go. Judd wrote for the publication for a quarter-century, so this is significant news on the front. It’s a shame to see it go down the way this did in that case. However, if the AJC is going to hold those standards, then accountability is just as important.
[AJC, Bruce Feldman]
