‘Accuracy, fairness  are extremely important ...’

'Everybody can't be a coach'
6/24/11
Thumbs up as Santa look-alike loses his locks
6/24/11
Charles Krauthammer: U.S. needs a new way to decide when we’re at war
6/24/11
Treasurer: ‘County finances can be rather complex’
6/24/11
> More opinion headlines

2:19 PM Friday, February 5, 2010

I almost missed the second-day story on Perry Thatcher in the Jan. 31 edition of The Journal where I was part of the lead on a story about Perry by Rick McCrabb.

Let me quote that lead: “Perry Thatcher, unhappy with Middletown City Council, ran into then-councilman Fred Sennet one day while dining at the Manchester Inn. Thatcher told Sennet that he was going to run against him, unseat him and change the way council operated.”

What really happened was that Perry was actually serving on my re-election committee, along with Tom Blake, John Sawyer and Jim Shull. About a week before the filing deadline, I got a call from Barry Levy, a longtime friend, who told me that Perry was going to run for my 1st Ward seat. I was surprised that Perry was going to challenge me. Perry didn’t call me nor bump into me at the Manchester where he said he would run and unseat me and change the way council operated.

The story also contained a third paragraph as part of the lead on Sunday’s story: “Thatcher then easily defeated Sennet on Nov. 6, 2001.” The story failed to mention that Jim Armbruster Sr. also ran for the 1st Ward seat in that election.

I certainly don’t want to imply that I deserved to win. I do want to imply that accuracy and fairness are extremely important to any story that a newspaper carries. ...

Fred Sennet

Middletown

Share this article