The Zenith stands corrected

This is a poor headline. I only realized a few hours later that it suggests the Zenith was wrong. Actually the Zenith was correct. A few posts back I mentioned that the Trib reporter Sarah Horner discovered an error in the story about Keith Dixon’s days in Faribault. Well the writer of the Zenith story took exception and asked me to clarify the “mistake.”

I explained that Sarah had indicated that the Zenith story had said that the big building bond in 1995 was Dr. Dixon’s baby and that the Trib reporter had been contacted by former Faribault School Board members who said that it had been their baby, the Board’s baby, and that Dixon was only hired to sweet talk the public into passing it.

Well Jennifer just emailed me back and had this, among other things to say:

I still don’t see an error on our part nor, for that matter, on Sue Nelson’s.

All our story said with regards to this was, “In 1995, the Faribault school district passed a referendum to bond for $38 million…” This was confirmed by multiple sources and I did not attribute that information to Ms. Nelson in the story.

Given that Keith Dixon hired on in Faribault in 1995 and the referendum passed in 1995, some of this had to have been in the works before Dr. Dixon arrived. I didn’t specifically note that in my story, but it’s not only self-evident (referenda don’t pass in a day, after all), but nor is it relevant to my story, which focused on Dr. Dixon’s management of the project and its fallout after the referendum had passed.

I just don’t see where there’s an error here. Ms. Nelson never told me that Dr. Dixon authored the bond and I never reported that he did, according to Ms. Nelson or anyone else.

I asked the Zenith if I could forward the email to the Tribune’s reporter. I don’t recall if the Trib reporter called the Faribault board members or if they called her. If they called her I would surmise that Dr. Dixon got on the phone to his old supporters and asked for them to do damage control.

The Zenith Story, which will soon be put in its entirety on the letduluthvote website, gives a pretty grim picture of Faribault after Dr. Dixon’s deparature. Its the same story I got myself after I made a few calls. I know of several folks who’ve heard the same story after making calls to Faribault, including one of the City Council candidates.

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