The Richmond Times-Dispatch makes a big front page deal about the heated nine-page letter that author David Baldacci wrote to fellow members of the VCU Board of Visitors yesterday (”RT-D Exclusive”! Wowee Zowee!!).
And for good reason — it’s hot stuff. The best-selling author’s letter not only strongly criticizes the board’s internal investigation into the Rodney Monroe degree scandal, the distinguished VCU alum provides an able summation of events that help to clarify — from his perspective — what has brought the school to this sad point.
How interesting that the newspaper doesn’t make the complete letter available for perusual, so that readers can actually see firsthand what Baldacci had to say. When snarky blogger-type people criticize mainstream news outlets for not understanding the power and potential of its own web resources, they can point to this as example #1.
Any way you slice it, David Baldacci’s letter is damning stuff… and deserves to be read in its entirety. An excerpt:
It seems that over the last few months events at VCU were inexplicably unfolding in a parallel universe, where logic and reason were tossed out the window. A world in which one unnamed source could have put in motion this debacle where the reputations of distinguished people were destroyed over an issue that should have been dealt with internally and with dignity, and not played out in the media like a poorly written drama. This is without question the darkest chapter in the saga of a university that I support and love. It is also at this precise moment a university I no longer recognize.
Click here and read David Baldacci’s letter to the VCU Board of Visitors.