I'm more than a day late on this story, but I want to comment on it anyway, mainly because it reveals how incredibly tabloid some Milwaukee media outlets are becoming.
What is with Dan Bice and the Ed Flynn/Jessica McBride affair? What's his problem?
Now he's pouring over 217 e-mail messages between the two.
Doesn't he have anything better to do? Guess not.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Police Chief Edward Flynn and journalist Jessica McBride traded an astounding 217 messages over four months on his city e-mail account, newly released records show.
In the e-mails, the pair proved chatty and friendly.
McBride offered opinions about local radio talk show hosts such as Charlie Sykes, and Flynn discussed how Mayor Tom Barrett greased the skids for his appointment. The two talked about actors and actresses, comedians, TV shows and movies, along with local politics.
McBride also took the unusual step of keeping the chief apprised of many of the twists and turns while someone edited her glowing Milwaukee Magazine profile of Flynn.
But the e-mails on his public e-mail account — released by the city in response to an open records request — fall short of the steamy and graphic exchanges the two had in handwritten letters and private e-mails. No Quarter first reported on those exchanges last month.
"At this rate, you need a Chardonnay not a coffee anyway," McBride wrote Flynn at his office on April 26 in response to his request for coffee with her. "Or a strong whiskey. Or a Guinness. If you had a Guinness with (Ald.) Bob Donovan, you can have one with me."
That’s about as flirtatious as the public e-mails get. That one also marks one of the final exchanges between the two on Flynn’s account at the Milwaukee Police Department.
Last month, Flynn, 61, apologized for the extramarital affair without mentioning the 39-year-old journalist’s name, asking the city for its forgiveness. Outside of answering a question or two at a press conference, he has largely kept quiet about the relationship.
The chief has moved from his East Side condo, where the relationship began.
McBride, by contrast, has been more combative, emphasizing that affair began in early May, a couple of weeks after the magazine article appeared in print. She is married to former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher.
A former Journal Sentinel reporter and conservative talk-show host, McBride is a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a weekly columnist for the Waukesha Freeman and faculty supervisor for Frontpage Milwaukee, an online paper that covers many topics including MPD.
At the start, Flynn and McBride’s e-mail messages were detached and professional.
But the journalist quickly began filling Flynn’s e-mail account with her thoughts and opinions. For instance, on Jan. 1, she expressed frustration with a negative Journal Sentinel editorial despite a drop in city crime. "Sometimes I wish I was writing a column, not a feature story," she wrote.
This has really become weird.
Bice seems disappointed that the new information "[falls] short of the steamy and graphic exchanges the two had in handwritten letters and private e-mails."
Creepy.
This is such gossipy crap. It's not investigative reporting. Bice is like a gossip columnist. He seems bent on humiliating McBride and doesn't appear to mind humiliating Flynn.
Why else would Bice be printing parts of their e-mail exchanges, ones that drop names, like Charlie Sykes, Tom Barrett, Lena Taylor, Jim Doyle, John Chisholm, and Jon Stewart? Yes, Jon Stewart.
TMJ4 also did some similar cherry picking on its breathless report, "New E-Mails Shed Light On Chief Flynn Affair."
Chief Flynn was also candid about his opinions involving politics and other city and county officials. He tells McBride that he has been pushing for the Mayor to support a concealed carry law to allow the public to carry concealed weapons.
He also takes a jab at Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. In a March 16, e-mail exchange, McBride asks Flynn about his response to a question about the early release of inmates. Flynn responds, "I was trying not to become embroiled in any reflexive "outrage" (per the always outraged sheriff)."
How do such details "shed light" on the affair that's newsworthy?
They don't.
Perhaps Bice could post the "astounding 217 messages" online?
Even better, the Journal Sentinel could print them in a special section.
2 comments:
Here's why this is a big deal. The police chief is a very public official who supposedly should be a model of good ethics and morals - or at least have that perception.
Jessica McBride was a long history of being self righteous, pompous and antagonistic to those with differing political opinions. She failed to hold a job at the only legitimate paper in town. She was fired for bad behavior from the radio show she had. She has a teaching job of sorts at UWM - remember, those that do, do .. those who can't teach. Her public visibility came from personal attacks to various people in a blog that she wrote. Written for free, with zero accountability, based upon self proclaimed talents, which again, was discontinued because she had pissed off so many people.
Her professional peer group ... note I said professional peer group, not other bloggers or people who are friendly to her, think she's a joke.
Even after saying all this I agree with you - the affair is not newsworthy and is meaningless. Unless you're Jessica McBride who worked for the MJS, insulted them numerous times and pissed off so many people in the past few years. Then it's free sport and great fodder for private conversation humor.
What goes around comes around. It's her turn.
I've heard this from McBride detractors again and again: "She has a teaching job of sorts at UWM - remember, those that do, do .. those who can't teach."
Do you realize that you're slamming teachers?
I know you're taking a swipe at McBride, but you're also belittling the teaching profession.
It's clear that you really hate McBride, but don't let that hate spill over to bash teachers.
It makes you seem so very... hateful.
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