After we broke the story on the delayed move of the university shop, despite the SU President claiming it as a success just two months earlier, Chris Charnley said we got only half of it.
He publicly expressed his disappointment over the fact that we “did not wait for the full story and the Union’s comment before you started making such obscure comments.” Yet he failed to mention which parts of our report were “obscure”.
Besides failing to clarify the “obscure” comments, Charnley also failed to provide us with the “other half” of the story. He couldn’t dispute the accuracy of our report either, yet he was able to write over 100 words on how a full update from him will soon follow.
What we did not mention in our report is that since the beginning of the week Charnley had arranged private briefings on the shop’s delay with all campus media outlets, trying to dilute and spin the story. If all would have went according to plan, the shop’s delayed move would have been only a mention in a late news bulletin or on the bottom of a news page, because everybody would have heard of it through the grapevine by then.
We decided it is in the public interest this story comes to light as soon as possible, so we ran with it. Waiting a few days would just have given Charnley time to come up with a polished, misleading response, in an attempt to do damage control in advance of his campaign for re-election as SU president this Spring.
The Linc delivers just the facts that matter.
Whilst I agree half the storey is better than none, The Linc did seem to immediately lay straight in to Chris and the SU without waiting to see why the planned opening date had changed.
Given that the University is a complex beast with hundreds of committees and groups which can throw a spanner in the works, I would have personally thought it more prudent to wait and see why the shop was delayed instead of assuming that the SU were somehow masterminding a plot – for all you know it’s possible that the SU were (and still are) pushing for an earlier date but there are problems commissioning the space, something the SU cannot work around.
Nick, thanks for your thoughtful comment.
As usual, we are following up on the story — so an update is on the way.
Perhaps when the shop opens, “epic win for university shop” might be a good headline?