The April 29 Hot Type creates the false impression that La Raza’s Jorge Oclander supplied the Tribune with documents that were used in our reports on the Board of Education building at 5151 W. Madison St.
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That simply isn’t true, and Michael Miner knew it. Mr. Oclander may be the rock-steady, dogged investigator that Miner says he is, but his records weren’t a source for the Tribune’s articles. I know because I co-reported our stories, which were based on interviews, land records, court and government files and board documents the Tribune obtained pursuant to Freedom of Information requests filed last year.
The “false impression” that Jackson writes of consists of two elements: (1) Oclander supplying the Tribune with certain documents, and (2) the Tribune using them. Oclander told me he gave documents to the Tribune’s education writer, Jacquelyn Heard, and Heard acknowledges this. The question then is, did the Tribune use those documents and break Heard’s promise to give La Raza credit, which is what Oclander believes, or did Jackson come up with other copies of the same documents on his own? In a conversation before I wrote the column, Jackson told me that he had come up with his own copies.
