COMMENT

Ask – but don’t tell

The silence of the Times Union on the Bartoski case is consistent with its apparent – and undenied – policy of not reporting lawsuits filed against some of its advertisers. But the continuing absence of a story on this lawsuit in particular is curious, because last year a reporter at the paper asked about the case after seeing a story on this site.

The reporter, Cathleen Crowley, sent an e-mail just after the filing of the Bartoski lawsuit was reported here. Crowley said she had tried to locate details of the case on the court’s Web page but had been unable to find it.

An e-mail was sent back, explaining that cases are not listed on the court system’s Web site until a request has been made by one of the parties for ‘judicial intervention.’ This, it was explained, is often several months after a complaint is filed. Until then, documents in the case are available at the office of the county clerk in the county of filing as soon as they are filed.

Along with this e-mail to Crowley, a copy of the Bartoski complaint was sent as an attachment. But Crowley did not acknowledge it, so a week or so later, a Twitter Direct Message, asking if she had received, it was sent.

Crowley replied, saying: “Hi David. Yes I received the info. Thanks for sending it along. I hope to find some time to look into it. Thanks. c.”

That sounded like a brush off, and apparently it was: To this day, there has been no further communication from the reporter. And neither she or anyone else at the TU has published a story about the Bartoski case, or about any of the other medical-malpractice lawsuits filed since then against the paper’s advertisers.

–David Baker

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