The Chronicle
www.dukechroniclesports.com
THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2016 | 13
ESPN director discusses upcoming lacrosse film about people who aren’t in them, so that is never a huge problem for me. Or so I thought at the time! I would have liked to talk to President [Richard Brodhead], for example, because I think in the end it would have been beneficial to the University to address how they handled the matter and what they learned from it. They didn’t think it was necessary.
Ryan Hoerger The Chronicle Marina Zenovich is the director of an upcoming ESPN 30 for 30 documentary that examines the Duke lacrosse case and the national firestorm that it generated. Named after a sound byte from David Evans—one of the three lacrosse players falsely accused of rape—“Fantastic Lies” will air Sunday, the 10year anniversary of the off-campus party that triggered the chain of events. Zenovich answered questions via email from The Chronicle’s Ryan Hoerger—who prescreened the film—about her experience revisiting the case and her impressions of what she found. The Chronicle: What first got you interested in the Duke lacrosse case and revisiting it in the form of a documentary? Marina Zenovich: I was approached by the producer of “Man on Wire” to do the film. Of course I knew about the story but hadn’t followed it to the end, so was interested in researching what had happened. I had no idea what I was getting into. TC: At the beginning of the film, there’s a description of the divide that existed between Duke and Durham, and how the community was ready for this type of firestorm. As you interviewed people around the community now 10 years removed from the party, did you get a sense of how that contrast has evolved? Is it any better? Is it worse? MZ: You should ask a local. From an outsider’s perspective, I think the divide was milked by the media in the firestorm of the case. I think most people in Durham want to forget what happened. The University officials certainly did. TC: In the interviews with the lawyers for the players and the players’ families, you really get a sense of the holes in the case laid out by [former Durham County district attorney Mike] Nifong. What most
Chronicle File Photo After a year-long case, the three lacrosse players accused of rape were declared innocent in April 2007.
surprised you about the case itself? MZ: Where do I begin? What surprised me the most was the extent of the prosecutorial misconduct as well as the misconduct by the police. These guys were really just having a field day and doing whatever they wanted to suit their own needs. It was almost as if they had decided what had happened in the case and then went searching for facts that would prove it, instead of the other way around. TC: What were the primary emotions expressed by the players’ families and other former players when you talked to them, and was there any hesitancy on their part about revisiting something that caused so much pain? MZ: Hesitation? How about flat out Nos. It took months to get them to talk, and even when they agreed, it was incredibly hard for them to reopen old wounds. This case was incredibly difficult for everyone involved, especially the families of the indicted boys. TC: In one part of the documentary,
TC: How do you think the lacrosse case affected public perception of Duke as a university and the public perception of lacrosse as a national sport? Ten years removed from the party, how does the case still affect public perception of Duke lacrosse specifically? MZ: Like anything, it depends on who you talk to. I am an outsider, so I don’t want to proclaim to know anything more than what I learned making the film which I put into the film.
there’s an insinuation that maybe the way everything was handled by the University administration doesn’t happen if it’s a different sport implicated in the controversy, like men’s basketball. Could you elaborate on that a bit? MZ: Draw your own conclusions. TC: The end of the film reveals that [accuser] Crystal Mangum consented to an interview, but that prison officials denied the request [Mangum is now serving time for second-degree murder of her exboyfriend]. What happened there? MZ: I guess she had done press in the past and it caused problems in the prison. For this reason, they felt it wasn’t a good idea. TC: In general, there were so many key people and entities who declined to be interviewed for the film. What were the challenges in trying to revisit the case without their cooperation, and how did you get around them? MZ: I kind of specialize in making films
Photo Courtesy of Jeff Vespa, ESPN ESPN 30 for 30 director Marina Zenovich urges viewers to draw their own conclusions.
Former Chronicle editor reflects on coverage 10 years later Rachel Chason The Chronicle Seyward Darby, Trinity ’07, served as editor of the 101st volume of The Chronicle in 2005-06, when three Duke lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a stripper at a party held by the team. Darby now works as an editor for Foreign Policy. Now 10 years since the March 13 party, Darby answered questions via email and reflected on coverage of the case as well as the atmosphere on campus.
Special to The Chronicle Seyward Darby led The Chronicle’s coverage of the lacrosse case when it began in March 2006.
The Chronicle: When did you first hear about the allegations, and when did you realize how big the story would become? Seyward Darby: I first heard about them when I was in New York City for spring break. I was in the Empire State Building. At the time, we didn’t know that the lacrosse team was involved, only that a rape had allegedly occurred in a house off East Campus. We found out that lacrosse players were being accused
a few days later-—the day after Duke fell out of the men’s basketball bracket during March Madness. We knew it was going to be huge when media vans and trucks began rolling into campus, and when The New York Times called The Chronicle office to ask for assistance in obtaining a copy of the search warrant for the Buchanan house. TC: What was the atmosphere like on campus as the story developed? SD: If you were to walk across campus on a given day in those initial weeks, not much would have seemed out of the ordinary—save the journalists and videographers posing in front of the Duke Chapel to provide dispatches for local and national TV shows. Certainly, there were protests that The Chronicle documented at the time, students and professors and Durham residents who believed the lacrosse players had committed a crime, or at the very least were hiding something they had done, criminal or not. And there were students,
especially friends of the lacrosse team, who were vocal about the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” Yet most people, as I recall, didn’t know what to believe; the facts weren’t at all clear at that point—this is before even the DNA test results were released—so most students, when they were thinking or talking about the case, were pondering whether a rape could have happened, whether the accuser might be lying, whether the district attorney had a piece of damning evidence or was just overzealous. In other words, the campus atmosphere was one of curiosity and anticipation. People absolutely wanted to know what had happened, and they wanted a just outcome. But they also weren’t jumping to sweeping, collective judgments about the allegations in the case. Additionally, I would say that students were frustrated by how the media were portraying Duke and Durham: using See DARBY on Page 17