TV station erred on library story

Racine library isn’t closing

By Paul Sloth
Journal Times

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:05 PM CDT

RACINE — The Racine Public Library is not at risk of closing, even if that’s what you may have heard on TV.

Library Director Jessica MacPhail was surprised to see a promo on Milwaukee’s Fox 6 news Tuesday evening for a story about the

Racine Public Library that suggested it might close because it did not meet state standards.

Nothing could be further from the truth, MacPhail said.

That didn’t stop the e-mails from concerned patrons who were worried by what they saw on the news Tuesday night.

“It really ticked me off. Nowhere during the interview did we ever talk about the library being shut down,” MacPhail said. “You could say I was shocked.”

MacPhail held a library staff meeting Wednesday to assure employees that the library was not closing, she said.

MacPhail said she called both the reporter who did the story and the station’s news director to demand a correction or retraction.

Jim Lemon, vice president/news director at WITI-TV (Channel 6), accepted responsibility for the mistake and planned to run a correction on the evening news Wednesday.

“We made an error, which we’re going to correct. It was an internal communication error between an editor and a reporter,” Lemon said. “We’re certainly not in the business of putting out inaccurate information.”

Most of the standards indicated in the news story about the Racine library are related to collections of materials, according to MacPhail.

The Racine Public Library does not have the space to shelve the amount of materials that would meet state standards.

The state standards for public libraries are voluntary, according to MacPhail.

This would not force the library to close.

“A number of libraries do not meet these voluntary state standards,” said John DeBacher, public library administrator for the state Department of Public Instruction, in a statement released by MacPhail. “There is no mechanism to shut public libraries down for not meeting state standards.”

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