Jessica McBride: Public Private Matters

In the Waukesha Freeman, Jessica McBride responds to the latest media frenzy about her personal life.

The bottom line: "This should never have been a story in the first place, back in June."

I, for one, think the majority of the reporting on the relationship between Jessica McBride and Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn has been an incredibly inappropriate intrusion into their lives and their families' lives.

Lead crusader, Dan Bice, acts as if he's on a mission from God. Truly bizarre.

I sincerely don't get it.

I get the motivation in terms of the Journal Sentinel and the Journal Broadcast Group hoping to profit by going tabloid. What I don't get is why these NEWS organizations are willing to throw away their respectability and their standards like this. It's terribly short-sighted. Frankly, it's creepy.

I feel like I'm witnessing a public stoning. It's wrong.

The comments that Bice and the Journal Sentinel permit on their website are an absolute disgrace.

I don't allow that sort of trash on this site. The Journal Sentinel should make some policy changes regarding comments. If they're being moderated, there needs to be a more responsible moderator. Some of the comments on Bice's column are terribly offensive, inexcusably offensive. Are there no standards of decency?

Hey! Journal Sentinel! What are you doing?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Do Bice and other members of the local media think about how their reporting is impacting the lives of people caught in this drama, the ones who aren't public figures?

Do they think about the children and other family members? Do they care about the "collateral damage" from their obsessive coverage of this private matter?

Obviously not.

I don't think private pain should be sold for public consumption.

The holier-than-thou people slamming the parties involved via blog posts and comments posted on the JS site should be ashamed as well to be taking part and adding to this ugly stew.

Remember, these are real people, real lives, real consequences.

What I'm seeing is flat-out cruelty on the part of the media and the online critics of Jessica McBride and Ed Flynn.

Human beings certainly are an imperfect lot.