Monday, March 24, 2008

Wulsin Fact Check Request to the Enquirer and Dayton Daily News Editorial Page Editors

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

David Wells, Cincinnati Enquirer
Ellen Belcher, Dayton Daily News

Dear Mr. Wells and Ms. Belcher,

Last month your papers endorsed Dr. Victoria Wulsin to be the Democratic Party candidate in this year’s Ohio 2nd Congressional race.

From Make it Wulsin vs. Schmidt, Enquirer, February 24, 2008:

From Our Recommendation: Dems Need to Stick with Wulsin, Dayton Daily News, February 20, 2008:

I’m requesting your help in order to verify a fact which pertains to your endorsements.

For the past few years, The Beacon has been reporting about Dr. Wulsin’s connections to the Heimlich Institute’s “malariotherapy” experiments. Well before the March 4th Election Day, I sent the following request to Enquirer reporter Margaret McGurk:

I wrote to Ms. McGurk because Dr. Wulsin failed to respond to multiple requests in which I asked if she was employed by the Heimlich Institute, by Dr. Henry Heimlich, or by another entity. I wrote to Ms. McGurk because lately Dr. Wulsin has been dodging the Beacon and I figured she was less likely to avoid an Enquirer reporter. I also assumed that if she were a good reporter, Ms. McGurk would want to back up her own work and as well as provide Enquirer readers with accurate information. A few days later, the Enquirer’s February 24 editorial endorsement included a re-statement of the same claim, that Dr. Wulsin worked for the Heimlich Institute, so I sent Ms. McGurk a February 26 follow-up request, copied to her editor Carl Weiser and to you, Mr. Wells. I never received a reply.

Why is the identity of Dr. Wulsin’s employer of interest and why am I contacting you?

First, if as has been alleged, Dr. Wulsin participated in violative, possibly illegal medical experiments, the role of her employer may be consequential. The Heimlich Institute is a wholly-owned corporate subsidiary of The Deaconess Associations Inc. If Dr. Wulsin was employed by the Heimlich Institute, she would have been be paid by Deaconess which presumably would also maintain her employment records.

Second, Dr. Wulsin has repeatedly claimed to have worked for the Heimlich Institute and to have interacted with the Deaconess board. If she has been telling the truth, why won’t she provide some verification?

Third, her employment dates don’t scan. A January 21, 2005 Cincinnati Business Courier article states that Dr. Wulsin worked for the Heimlich Institute from February-May 2004.  But, per the Enquirer endorsement, Dr. Wulsin claims she was fired after she turned in a critical report. That’s the rub: her report is dated December 2004, six months after she was allegedly fired in May. 

Dr. Wulsin is running for national office. Your newspapers endorsed her and cast aspersions on the allegations of misconduct raised by her opponent. The Enquirer’s endorsement even stated “Black’s attacks are based more on innuendo than fact.” I’ve done my best to obtain the information from Dr. Wulsin, Ms. McGurk, and from Deaconess. I haven’t received a reply from any of them. You’re responsible for your paper’s editorial pages. All I’m asking it that you back up your endorsements with one simple bit of fact-checking.

Would you please contact Deaconess Associations and Dr. Wulsin, ask them to provide documentation verifying Dr. Wulsin’s dates of employment and job title, and let me know how they respond?

Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

[The Dean of Cincinnati]
The Cincinnati Beacon

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anon says:
25 Mar 2008  at  08:05 am | #

Nice play. Even if they fail to respond, they can’t later claim they weren’t notified.

Along the same lines, if it turns out that Wulsin was lying about working for the Heimlich Institute, that you brought the matter to McGurk and Wells weeks BEFORE the Enquirer endorsement, then instead of fact checking, they ignored you and the Enquirer gave the thumbs-up to Wulsin claiming the Black’s campaign got their facts wrong?

If so, it will look like McGurk and Wells had their thumbs up somewhere else.

Facts? Who's Got Facts? says:
25 Mar 2008  at  10:14 am | #

Who is the fact checker at the Enquirer? Do they have one or did it get cut in the budget?

OOPS:
I’m being so bad today!!!!!!

Angry Old Man says:
25 Mar 2008  at  12:09 pm | #

If Margaret McGurk can’t back up her claim, that means she just made it up. Obviously the scale is not up to Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass, but still it is fabricating information and, if the Enquirer fails to act, Ms. McGurk is being held unaccountable for making stuff up. That’s a step on a slippery slope for any news organization, especially if they hung a political endorsement on bad reporting.