Re: 3/22/00 - Yale: ABC's 20/20 'got it wrong'
Yale: ABC's 20/20 'got it wrong'
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BY MICHAEL HORN
YDN Staff Reporter
Published 3/22/00
University Secretary Linda Lorimer released a statement yesterday stating Yale's official position about the murder of Suzanne Jovin '99, as the University spokesman who made controversial remarks on the case during an ABC News broadcast said for the first time that the network "got it wrong."
Lorimer decided to make her statement because of complaints after a broadcast of ABC News' 20/20 which quoted University spokesman Thomas Conroy as saying that bringing more attention to the murder can "only hurt Yale" and that Yale wants to put the Jovin murder behind it.
Conroy said his broadcasted statements were mischaracterized, but ABC continues to maintain Conroy made the remarks, that he said them "repeatedly" and that he said they were Yale's official position.
Lorimer felt compelled to clarify the University's position on the 15-month-old investigation in part because of criticism that Conroy's statements on the show were insensitive to the Jovin family and the Yale community. Lorimer also said she had hoped ABC would rely on previous administrators' remarks on the murder.
"Since the day she lost her life, our heartfelt position has been and remains the same: that Suzanne's murder was a senseless and tragic crime; that the University is committed to efforts to memorialize the life and accomplishments of this remarkable young woman; and that Yale, like her family and friends, awaits justice and the solving of this crime," Lorimer said in the statement.
Yale political science professor David Cameron and Michael Blum '98 said that the University should have better expressed its sympathy in the broadcast.
"We wanted to make sure that everyone in this community was aware of our actual position," Lorimer said.
In a statement yesterday, 20/20 said their investigation yielded new information in the case and that producers "were surprised when Yale University declined over a dozen requests from [ABC] to make a University administrator available for an interview."
In an interview last night, Conroy said, "with all due respect to ABC, they got it wrong."
Conroy said his remarks about Yale's desire to put the murder behind it "were not the reasons I gave for our decision to decline an interview. -- What is true is what Secretary Lorimer [said]."
Explaining why Yale officials did not directly talk to ABC, Lorimer said official statements such as Yale President Richard Levin's presentation of a posthumous Elm-Ivy Award to Jovin in 1998 were available to ABC, but 20/20 did not use them.
"Our heartfelt expressions that were not crafted for any publication or broadcast were readily available," Lorimer said. "If additional magazines and TV shows want comment, they too will have the authentic expressions of the University's view."
YDN Staff Reporter Michael Barbaro contributed to this report.
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