When SouthsideCentral makes a mistake, I will own up to that mistake. I will issue a retraction & apologize to all parties involved… and for the first time in SouthsideCentral history, I’m doing that tonight.
Earlier this morning, I had two credible sources telling me that an officer with the Danville Police Department had been charged with DUI in a vehicle accident. Both sources were credible so I published the story. After being informed of potential problems with that story, I immediately corrected the article and began working on more information. After investigating further, I later found out that there were no DUI charges filed in the incident and the officer had no alcohol in her system. I retracted the article on SouthsideCentral as well as Facebook & Twitter. I also issued an apology to the Danville police department. I did not publish the name of the officer involved in this accident and would not have published it until I had gotten a statement from the DPD.
These things happen at times in the business and all I can do is try extremely hard to make sure that they never happen again. SouthsideCentral doesn’t have an ombudsman for regrettable situations like this… it’s just me. That being said, I owe it to the Danville police department and my readers to give a full accounting of what went wrong today and that’s why I’m writing this article tonight.
I blew it. I’m sorry.
Sincerely,
Bruce Hedrick
bhedrick@southsidecentral.com
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