If you want to get the attention of a newspaper editor, send an email with a subject line that says, “Request for Correction, Update or Retraction.”
One such email arrived Sept. 19, and whatever I was doing, I stopped to read it. It was addressed to the publisher of the Northwest Florida Daily News and me, and it was about a lawsuit filed by a property development company against the guy who sent the email.
The email was all about some case in Okaloosa County, Fla., where Fort Walton Beach and Destin are located. Nowhere near Mississippi. So I started thinking, praise the Lord, this email got sent to me by mistake.
I had to go way down in the email to find out why the Enterprise-Journal was included.
We had reported in our Aug. 30 paper that a former Destin city council member had been suspended from office for her opposition to a development there. It was news here because the councilwoman, Dr. Prebble Ramswell, had relocated to McComb and had just been appointed to the city planning commission.
The e-mail sender, Gene Earley, said our story did not report everything relevant about the lawsuit in which he was a defendant. Which naturally made me worry that he was threatening to sue the Enterprise-Journal, even though McComb has neither beaches nor condos, and is quite a distance from Destin.
In searching the internet for background on the lawsuit, we apparently did not look deeply enough. Earley wrote that an Okaloosa County circuit judge ruled that Earley’s public remarks about the development company were protected free speech on a topic of public interest. The judge awarded him court costs and attorney fees.
So this week, I printed out part of Earley’s email and tried to make sense of its legal issues. I emailed him a three-paragraph correction acknowledging our error and said I’d be glad to add further information if he wished.
The next day, he called me, and I can report that, praise the Lord, my fears of a lawsuit went away. I can also report, as you shall see, that this truly is a small world.
First, he said Ramswell, a retired government employee, is a fine person. In his opinion, the state and local officials who lined up against her treated her horribly. So hopefully Destin’s loss is McComb’s gain.
Earley said he had lived in Okaloosa County for a number of years, ever since he was in the military there.
“Yep, my brother lives in Niceville,” I said, referring to a town right across the bay from Destin. “I know a lot of military retirees live there.”
My brother, a former Air Force fighter pilot, has lived in Florida since working at Eglin Air Force Base and nearby Hurlburt Field, another Air Force installation.
A couple of minutes later, I mentioned my brother again. Earley asked his name.
Patrick Ryan, I told him.
“I know Pat!” he exclaimed. “Haven’t talked to him in a while, but we were involved in an election a few years ago.”
I was sure, and Earley confirmed it, that the election they worked on involved a superintendent of education race that got really nasty. In Pat’s telling, it was one more point for the argument that superintendents should be appointed.
Anyway, it definitely helped that Earley and I had a mutual friend. He sent another email with more details about the case, and I’ll have a correction in the paper Wednesday.
He also said, “I’m not the kind of guy who gets mad.” Praise the Lord for that, too. But he, and anyone else who’s mentioned in the newspaper or on our website, should have every expectation that the information about them is accurate. We are human, so we make mistakes, and when we do, I will gladly correct any error.
I haven’t talked to my brother yet. But I must commend his choice of political allies. His work with Earley really helped me.
