Headline on Karadzic Article Misleading

To the editors:

For anyone who does not believe that The Harvard Crimson trains students for the real world of journalism, here is a story. Last week Jacqueline A. Newmyer '01, a Crimson reporter, called me to ask whether I was representing Radovan Karadzic. I told her that Karadzic had not even been in touch with me for the last year and a half and that there was no reason to think I would be representing him, especially since he was still a fugitive.

She apparently included these facts in the story and proposed the headline, "Dershowitz Denies Representing Karadzic" But the story did not end up appearing that way. It ended up with the following headline: "Dershowitz May Defend Serb Leader Karadzic." Nor did it include the important fact that I had not spoken to Karadzic for over a year.

The end result was that the entire thrust of the story was wrong. Accuracy had been sacrificed for dramatic effect by an anonymous editor. It sure sounds like the real world of competitive journalism, where the grabby headline is more important than the boring details. Your headline writer has a job waiting for him or her at the New York Post. Your editor may be comfortable at the National Enquirer. ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ   May 13, 1998