imported post
Since they've refused to completely correct this story, I've sent the following to the papers four editors as well as posted it to the comments section on the story.
Dear Editor,
I am writing because I am disturbed about the way the reporting was done on the article printed last week in this paper regarding a meeting held on 6-4-07 at the Centreville Regional Library. Your writer Layla Wilder has taken a certain liberty describing events and distorting what happened that evening. While your paper has made two corrections that I’ve requested there is still one that needs fixing, that your paper has informed me it will not do, so it is my responsibility to ensure the public has the correct information. You printed the following in this article:
“ “We just want to have meetings without everything getting distorted and ending up on YouTube," Hartnett said.
Chris Rohland, a resident of Centreville, signed the contract, but later posted footage of the confrontation on YouTube.
"It was a public meeting that was publicly advertised," Rohland said. "I wanted to tape it to share the information with other people." “
While these statements are not incorrect, without providing more detail about the waiver and what happened implies that I had no regard whatsoever for the WAIVER that I signed. This simply is not correct. Your paper does correctly state the WAIVER was for photographic representations of the meeting, but the meeting was never started or called to order. Therefore I had no obligation to respect anything on that paper, regardless of what it said.
Not only is it unfortunate that your report has chosen to put an untrue spin on this story, it is unfortunate that things turned out the way they did. I was among many pro-gun advocates that would have liked to have heard what the Northern Virginia Million Mom March Chapter and Bob Ricker had to say. For a group such as this who would like to spread their message it’s amazing that they choose not to use all available media resources available. YouTube is an inexpensive and free service that allows people to see and hear information on just about anything. It would do the Million Mom March organization wonders to use this outlet to spread their views. After all, with two of their own videographers and an armed Fairfax County Police Officer at the meeting, they surely couldn’t have felt intimidated or threatened in any way by anything I was doing. I hope both the TimesCommunity.com, The Fairfax County Times, and the Centreview Newspapers do more in the future to represent the whole truth, and not put a sensationalize spin on a story such as this.
Sincerely,
Chris Rohland
