For those of you who don’t routinely check out Civil Beat, you might be interested in the column that I wrote last week (“Ian Lind: HPU-Police ‘Conspiracy’ Report Told Less Than Half the Story“).

It was triggered by a Hawaii news Now story a couple of weeks ago about a lawsuit alleging that a former HPU professor had been “set up” by two others at HPU to be killed by police. When the story said one of those involved was an experienced former HPD officer, it gave me one of those “Did I hear that right?” moments and was just strange enough to prompt me to check out the tale.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, court records provided a lot more of the background to the case. Most of the background called into question the lawsuit’s allegations and, in fact, its overall narrative, which had been uncritically repeated by HNN.

It isn’t known just how HNN decided to broadcast the lawsuits allegations almost as if they were fact, but apparently without doing any basic independent checking.

And its not clear to me why the attorney handing the case would go so far out on a limb with allegations where there’s such a contradictory back story.

But its a case that certainly reminds us that it’s best to read actively and not assume that the news media has done their homework.