Reasons Wisconsin Conservatives Should Vote For Francesca Hong

Just recorded an interview with Vicki McKenna! She crossed over and voted for Francesca Hong, and she urges conservatives without competitive #GOP primaries to do so as well for the same reasons I have:

✅Hong is Tom Tiffany's weakest opponent. Could she win? Sure. But he has…

— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) August 7, 2026

Makes sense.

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.

Paul Bucher, Jessica McBride, and Ed Flynn

I knew the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's tabloid reporter Dan Bice eventually would be on the story of Paul Bucher filing for divorce from Jessica McBride.

In spring, Bice revealed the affair between Jessica McBride and Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn. He wallowed in the story. His reporting lacked professionalism, seeming bent on doing as much personal damage to the parties involved as possible. It was a pathetic display.

It's no surprise that Bice has produced a rather lengthy column on Bucher's latest divorce filing and Bucher's accusations. Of course, Bice includes material from his past articles on the affair, engaging in an unnecessary rehashing of details.

I think it's telling that the Journal Sentinel is so thorough when it comes to this story but it fails to adequately report on issues that are of far greater importance to the people of southeastern Wisconsin.

Bice writes:

Under attack from the guy who once ran for attorney general, Police Chief Edward Flynn denied charges Thursday that he has continued his much-publicized extramarital affair with local journalist Jessica McBride.

"MUCH-PUBLICIZED extramarital affair"?

Bice is the guy who publicized it. He appeared on TV, TMJ 4, to discuss the "big" news.

Bice, the JS, TMJ 4, and the other local media are all part of this story. They gave it life.

The difference this time is that Paul Bucher has decided to use the media himself, as tools to further his agenda -- taking down Ed Flynn.

McBride's husband, ex-Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, made the allegation on the same day he filed for divorce from McBride. This is the second time in recent months that he has filed for divorce from her.

"I regret that Mr. Bucher genuinely believes that I continued an extramarital affair with his wife," Flynn said in a statement. "I did not."

The first-term chief issued the statement after assuring his boss, Mayor Tom Barrett, that he had remained faithful to his wife in recent months. Barrett announced over the weekend that he is running for governor.

But like everything else in this soap opera, Flynn's statement then takes an odd turn.

Bice really loves a good soap opera!

Flynn, 61, acknowledges that he did not break all ties with McBride, 39, in the five months since he apologized to the city for the extramarital affair. Flynn and his wife, Susan, have been seen frequently together around town in recent months. She remained in Virginia when Flynn came to Milwaukee in January 2008.

"I cannot deny that (McBride) and I have communicated and that we met once," Flynn wrote. "Since my statement in June, there has not been, nor is there, an ongoing affair. I will not be drawn further into a public discussion about a pending divorce proceeding."

That's not so odd, not on the face of it. There are no details as to the reasons for the communication or meeting.

Compare those comments with the recent remarks from a friend of McBride's.

The friend, who asked not to be identified, said McBride acknowledged last month that she was still in love with Flynn and spoke glowingly of their sex life. She also said, according to the friend, that Flynn continued to call and e-mail her and that the two "were together" once in September.

If the public knew about the get-together, McBride told the buddy, Flynn certainly would lose his job. She didn't clarify the point.

This is crap.

"The friend"?

This person certainly isn't a friend of McBride's. Poor word choice, Bice.

Bice writes like a New York Times reporter, with the anonymous source. There's no way the reader can judge the reliability of "the friend." It's all rumor.

...On Thursday, Bucher told Channel 4 that he recently confronted Flynn after discovering that he had continued his extramarital affair with McBride.

"He was somewhat taken aback," Bucher said. "I asked him if he thought having sexual contact and intercourse with my wife in September on the 14th was conducive to trying to solve my marriage problems and his marriage problems. He indicated it was not."

Bucher then called for Flynn to resign: "Because he is a public official, I believe he needs to be held accountable." He added, "He has crushed our family."

The former prosecutor, who lost his 2006 bid for attorney general, put the blame for his divorce on Flynn in an interview with The Waukesha Freeman.

"All of this falls on him, and not my wife," Bucher said. "He continued to pursue her, and I hold him responsible for that, notwithstanding his public apology."

...Bucher's divorce filing comes less than a month after the executive committee of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's department of journalism and mass communication voted 3-2 to recommend that McBride be given indefinite status - the equivalent of tenure for academic staff.

McBride, a lecturer in the journalism department and a columnist for The Freeman, was represented by Bucher during the process. The recommendation for indefinite status still must be approved by the dean and provost.

...Bucher initially filed for divorce in late September and withdrew it less than a week later. His attorney, James Gatzke, said the pair had reconciled.

As in the earlier filing, Bucher, 54, is asking for primary placement of their 4-year-old daughter, child support and maintenance.

I think Bucher may regret going to the media.

He's not thinking of his children. The upset within the family has to be hard enough on them without having to deal with the public circus of the airing of these very personal matters.

Mayor Tom Barrett is right to support Flynn.

He has been tremendously successful as the police chief. I see no reason for him to resign.

If Bucher does in fact have proof that McBride and Flynn are still having an affair, I think the responsible thing to do would be to handle the situation as privately as possible. No one wins by having the matter play out in a public battle.
_____________________

TMJ 4 video.

WISN video.

With Bucher being willing to feed the media beast, I expect this to get uglier.

That's unfortunate for all concerned.

Divorce: Paul Bucher and Jessica McBride

UPDATE, November 19, 2009:

WAUKESHA - Former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher has filed again for divorce from his wife, Jessica McBride.

Bucher told The Freeman on Wednesday that he’d learned that Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn had continued to contact his wife as recently as Sept. 14, and he believes Flynn should be held accountable for it. McBride and Flynn were reported to have engaged in an extramarital affair earlier this year.

McBride, 39, is an educator at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a blogger and a columnist for The Freeman. She declined to comment on the matter Wednesday.

Repeated messages left with the Milwaukee Police Department seeking comment from Flynn were not returned Wednesday.

________________

I find it disturbing that some are gleefully writing about Paul Bucher filing for divorce from Jessica McBride.

Dan Bice, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, doesn't exactly handle the news with much sensitivity either.

First, there was the headline-grabbing and unexpected affair. Now comes the not-so-surprising divorce filing.

Late Thursday, former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher filed for divorce from journalist and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee instructor Jessica McBride.

Bucher, an unsuccessful candidate for state attorney general in 2006, is asking for primary physical placement - but joint custody - of their 4-year-old daughter. Bucher - now a partner with the small Waukesha firm Gatzke, Ruppelt, and Bucher - is also requesting child support and maintenance from McBride.

...The filing comes a little more than three months after Police Chief Edward Flynn, 61, apologized publicly for having an extramarital affair. He didn't identify McBride, 39, but No Quarter obtained love letters and e-mails between the two.

...Since issuing his apology in June, Flynn has been seen frequently around the city with his wife, Susan, who didn't move from her Virginia residence when he took the Milwaukee job last year.

For Bucher, this is his second marriage; it is McBride's first. The divorce filing says the pair has a pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreement, but neither was included in the file.

Isn't there some way that Bice can get details about the pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements?

I'm sure he's trying to hunt down some more information. Maybe Bice will cover another angle. Maybe he'll go after Bucher and McBride's 4-year-old daughter. Perhaps he'll chronicle her side of the story, get her to talk about her experience.

In any event, Bice can't be finished yet. He seems to relish his role as a sleazy tabloid reporter.

I wonder if Bice has any more leads he's pursuing. I wonder if he's harassing other families. He certainly appears to have had fun in this case.

Bice has not handled this matter professionally. His columns and posts on it have been oddly personal, straying from the standards of providing a "just the facts" objectivity.

In his reporting, Bice frequently refers to the "glowing profile" McBride wrote about Flynn for Milwaukee Magazine.

Does Bice realize that through his coverage, he's actually been writing a profile of himself?

I wouldn't call what Bice has revealed about himself to be very glowing.

Some truly vile comments related to the divorce filing are posted on Bice's blog:

Examples:

Chuck Cunningham
Friday Sep 25, 2009 11:04 AM

who else is laughing?
________________

StevenR Report
Friday Sep 25, 2009 11:15 AM

Me. Defense of marriage? Make me PUKE.

Not even WOMEN in the GOP can keep it in their pants. Could the Republicans POSSIBLY be more HYPOCRITICAL? A loving pair of homosexuals defends marriage MUCH BETTER than this disgusting threesome.
________________

URKiddingMe
Friday Sep 25, 2009 11:47 AM

So Jess is back on the market......????

I mean, I'm not involved in law enforcement or the criminal justice system, but I did once make a citizen's arrest. That's gotta be good for a little ????? behind some Water Street bar, right?
________________

djlresearch
Friday Sep 25, 2009 2:44 PM

Ms McBride has now broken up both of Mr. Bucher's marriages. Imagine going on a date with her? Who will she go after next? David Clarke? Scot Walker?

Poor Paul, he's make some judgement mistakes. First he procsecutes a Packer. That's a no win move. Then he hops in the sack with Little Miss Flirty. Both big gambles that did not pay off.

I've got two divorces under my belt myself. Not throwing any stones.

The first Mrs. Bucher -- nice lady. Lots of class. She's probably grinning.
________________

Cnote
Saturday Sep 26, 2009 10:47 AM

I totally agree with this statement- Haha!!-Not even WOMEN in the GOP can keep it in their pants. Could the Republicans POSSIBLY be more HYPOCRITICAL? A loving pair of homosexuals defends marriage MUCH BETTER than this disgusting threesome.
HYPOCRITES!!!!!!!!!

This is really sick stuff.

I think it's inappropriate for the Journal Sentinel to have these degrading remarks on its website. Some policy changes may be in order.

Would the JS print these statements if they were sent to the newspaper as letters to the editor?

Maybe it would, but the cowards that spew this crap probably wouldn't be willing to have their real names attached to it.

I wonder if Bice is responsible for moderating the comments section on his blog. If so, he should show better judgment.

Flynn and McBride: E-mail

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.

TMJ4: Flynn's Affair and Crime Stats

TMJ4 continues to focus on the affair Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn had with journalist Jessica McBride.

On the 10:00 PM newscast, rather than highlight the fact that crime is down in Milwaukee by 15% in 2009, the first order of business for TMJ4 was the affair.

That is bizarre.

TMJ4 is veering more and more toward TMZ type news.

Aaron Diamant covered the story.

Police Chief Ed Flynn is for the first time answering questions about his affair.

He first admitted to the affair last month, but Wednesday he spoke about it for the first time with reporters.

More than two weeks after the news broke, a Wednesday press conference about the city's falling crime rate is where the Chief finally decided he'd answer questions.

TODAY'S TMJ 4 reporter Aaron Diamant asked, "There's been some questions raised about the affect on credibility and your ability to lead the department. Your thoughts on that and where you go from here?"

To which Flynn replied, "As I said two weeks ago, I've apologized to my family, I've apologized to the Mayor, to the command staff, the members of my department and the residents of this community. On the private side of my life, I'm working hard to restore my credibility, and my family is the most important credibility right now."

Clearly, the last few weeks have been rough, but Flynn still maintains the affair happened off the clock, and never affected his job as the city's top cop.

"Publicly, my responsibility is to focus on the challenges that confront this city in terms of crime, fear, and disorder, and that's what I'm devoted to doing."

As for a citizens group led by organizer Lamont Harris, that says the Chief violated ethics rules and a state law by having the affair, Flynn says, "I haven't been contacted by any community groups. There's a community individual, who's got a perfect right to access the system as any other citizen does, and that's their right and they'll engage with the system, and the system will play out how it plays out. I can't control that."

Technically, adultery is against the law in Wisconsin, though it's almost never prosecuted.

TMJ4 video here.

The crime stats in Milwaukee were secondary, reported almost as an afterthought.

What's really strange about this is that the press conference was held to announce the crime situation in the city. Is progress being made?

Instead of that being the big news, TMJ4 chose to trumpet the FIRST TIME Flynn spoke about the affair ahead of the crime story.

That was a very poor decision.

Sleazy.

Murphy, McBride, and Bice

On Monday, Bruce Murphy, editor of Milwaukee Magazine, wrote a piece online defending Jessica McBride's integrity as a journalist. Last week, she came under attack by Dan Bice and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for the profile she wrote about Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn. Murphy wrote that the JS got it "dead wrong."

On Friday, Murphy posted another piece. He wimped out on his criticism of Bice and the JS. He said he was wrong, that he had to temper his criticism. He had come down too hard.

Murphy now believes that poor Bice and the JS were in an impossible situation.

The reality is that they were in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position: They would be criticized if they ran the story or if they didn’t.

I don't get that.

I didn't criticize them for running the story. It's how they ran it. It was a sloppy hit piece.

Murphy documented that. And even though he now admits that at first he did not ask McBride to hand over all the e-mails between her and Police Chief Ed Flynn, he acknowledges that when he did eventually see all that she had, they did confirm McBride's article was complete before the affair began.

Nonetheless, Murphy claims to have been taken aback. Why?

Murphy writes:

JS Managing Editor George Stanley told Pundit Nation blogger Michael Mathias that the paper had reason to believe [WTMJ reporter Charles] Benson was going after the McBride/Flynn story. The implication is that this is what pushed them to publish. If so, this might explain why the paper rushed the story out before checking the public e-mails of Flynn to establish when the affair actually began.

What does Benson's involvement have to do with anything? That's no excuse for Bice's sloppy journalism.

The issue is whether McBride followed ethical standards in reporting for Milwaukee Magazine.

Bice wanted to scoop Benson and he felt pressured to move before he had done a thorough job of reporting.

I don't see how that puts what Bice wrote in a better light.

This isn't about the story of the affair between Flynn and McBride. It's about whether McBride compromised her journalistic ethics writing the profile on Flynn.

Nothing Murphy says in his retraction/apology/wimp out relates to Bice's charges of an ethical conflict on the part of McBride.

I think Murphy is trying to placate the many people he pissed off, "the blizzard of comments and e-mail that came [his] way."

Where is Murphy's spine?

But at this point, the precise details hardly matter. In the eyes of the public, McBride has compromised herself – and this magazine.

That's crap. Of course, the precise details matter.

I think Murphy's comment about details calls his journalistic integrity into question.

Details don't matter? The truth doesn't matter? What is that?

Is Murphy in the business of journalism or public opinion polling?

He's pounding another nail in the coffin of journalism when he says "the precise details hardly matter."

This is nuts.

Here's the reality: A whole bunch of people and parties -- Bice, Murphy, TMJ4, the JS -- exploited an affair and exaggerated its impact for their own gain.

As Murphy wrote on Monday, "sex sells."

Bruce Murphy Responds: Dan Bice, Hatchet Man

UPDATE, June 27, 2009: Murphy, McBride, and Bice
________________

I've said all that I need to say about the affair between Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn and journalist Jessica McBride.

This is about ethics in journalism.

This is about Dan Bice and the hit piece he was determined to do on Jessica McBride.

This is about the stunning lack of professionalism of Dan Bice.

Bice was out pimping his EXCLUSIVE on TMJ4 and 620 WTMJ. He was pontificating about McBride's lack of journalistic ethics. In his Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column, he cited national experts and built a case to condemn McBride as a journalist.

Bruce Murphy, editor of Milwaukee Magazine, lays out what Bice ignored, what Bice left out of his story, what Bice failed to tell readers and listeners as he hawked his EXCLUSIVE.

Ethics?

ETHICS?

Murphy writes:

At this point, no one disputes that Jessica McBride had an affair with Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn. The question is when. We can all agree it’s a conflict of interest to have this affair while writing about him, but if the relationship began well after the story ran, there’s no conflict and no news story.

Murphy illustrates that there was no conflict of interest.

There's a documented time line that proves Bice is either incapable of following a story chronologically or he intentionally set out to trash Jessica McBride and damage her career.

I'll give Bice the benefit of the doubt and assume he can grasp a time line.

Actually, I don't think Bice has some sort of personal vendetta with McBride.

I think he just wanted to make a big story and break it in a big way. I think he concocted a strategy, lost sight of his ethics, and screwed up as he went along.

It was a couple of weeks ago that Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Bice called me about this story. "Can you tell me when this affair was supposed to have started," I asked. "I don't know," he replied.

Yet Bice went ahead and wrote an innuendo-laden story that simply asserted – but never proved – that McBride had this affair while working on a profile of Flynn for Milwaukee Magazine. Bice ignored information proving the contrary, and failed to do due diligence to establish the facts. All the evidence suggests the affair began in early May, months after McBride completed the story.

Now, as a result of Bice's hatchet job, McBride has been branded and ridiculed across the country, on countless Web sites and blogs, as a corrupt journalist. It's a tragedy for journalism, all right, but the real shame falls on Bice and his editors.

Am I overstating this? Let me present the background behind the story and the facts left out of Bice's account, and you be the judge.

Murphy then provides the details and offers a sound analysis.

He destroys Bice's charges against McBride's professionalism.

He reveals how remarkably unprofessionally Bice handled the story of the affair.

He documents how Bice strained to find journalistic ethical lapses in McBride's profile on Flynn for Milwaukee Magazine.

He points out how Bice manipulated quotes to persuade the reader to question McBride's journalistic integrity.

He displays how Bice desperately clung to his angle on "McBride as the unethical journalist" even after she made public an e-mail from Flynn that clearly refuted Bice's stance.

This passage from Bice's follow-up piece has come back to bite him:

"The romantic relationship with Chief Flynn began in May at Brocach's Irish Pub - four months after I completed and turned in the Milwaukee Magazine article," [McBride] wrote.

That's, in short, what she put out there.

Even more interesting is what she left out.

What SHE left out?

Murphy concludes:

I’m happy to disclose the details on how our story was done. I wonder if the JS can say the same about Bice’s exposé. It often seems like the newspaper never got the memo that in an online world, you no longer control the interpretation of stories. Online readers and bloggers do. And I welcome their examination of the issue.

I have a lot of respect for Journal Sentinel Editor Marty Kaiser, and I very much doubt he would have approved the Bice story had he known some of the things Bice chose to leave out – or not pursue – in this story. Bice is a very aggressive reporter, and that has resulted in some important stories. And if editors say no often enough, any reporter will start to become less aggressive. But this particular story seemed to scream out for more caution.

Ah, but sex sells. It’s always tempting to publish something like this – if there is a public policy issue at stake. Bice, however, offered no evidence the affair has in any way detracted from Flynn's performance as police chief. But a juicy conflict of interest for reporter McBride would certainly justify running the story. Perhaps that's why Bice stretched the truth to manufacture something that wasn't there.

For the record, we stand behind our story on Ed Flynn. Should any defects be pointed out, we will do the usual due diligence to determine if a correction or clarification is required.

Typically, once Milwaukee Magazine does an in-depth story on someone like Flynn, we’re unlikely to ever feature him again. McBride, of course, would have been honor-bound to disclose her relationship with Flynn had we ever asked her to cover him again. That’s when the issue of a conflict of interest would have arisen.

Back when I started running McBride’s stories, I heard from liberals who were upset, as McBride is a conservative commentator. My only concern, I told them, is how good a reporter she is. I still feel the same way, and still remain happy with the four features she's done for us. But I have heard from folks who believe the magazine should cross McBride off its list of freelance reporters. Should we? I’d be curious to hear from you, the reader, about this. I always learn from these exchanges, and welcome your thoughts about this entire issue.

This is black and white.

McBride should not be crossed off the list of Milwaukee Magazine's freelance reporters.

I've said this before and it bears repeating:

It looks like holier-than-thou, ethical journalism expert Dan Bice has some retracting to do.

All those who jumped to conclusions about McBride's lack of journalistic ethics need to reassess their criticism.

It will be interesting to see how Bice responds to Murphy's piece.

Will Bice admit that his coverage of this story has been seriously flawed?

Will Bice acknowledge his lapses in judgment?

Will Bice give up on the goofy "love at first sight" supposed evidence?

Will Bice exhibit that he cares about ethical standards in journalism?

Will Bice hold himself accountable?

This is about ethics.

Dan Bice's Deep Throat

I don't think Dan Bice's anonymous source in the outing of the Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride affair is receiving appropriate scrutiny.

This anonymous person tipped off Bice on June 1st. That's what set his investigation in motion.

In an interview on 620 WTMJ's "Wisconsin's Morning News" yesterday, Bice speaks of the process.

He presents himself as an almost heroic figure, working for weeks to get Flynn and McBride to buckle.

Last week, he claims he was barred from one of Flynn's press conferences because he says "they were afraid" that he might raise the question of the affair.

Bice says, "Stuff's been going on for the last two and a half weeks."

When asked why this is a story, Bice claims that "we struggled with that."

Really? Ethical concerns?

He explains, "Someone sent us what appeared to be a love letter and e-mails between them, and we spent time... we even spent more than an hour talking to a journalism ethicist about this."

Bice says they talked to two of the leading journalistic ethics professors in the country, and they struggled with whether to run the story. It was no longer a struggle, however, once the Chief decided to make the apology.

Obviously, Flynn's decision to make a public apology came about because he was being hounded by Bice and he knew the story was going to break. Bice makes it sound as if Flynn just voluntarily chose to air this incident in his personal life. That's a distortion of events.

Bice sticks to his justification that there was a journalistic ethics question because "there was this long, glowing story that Jessica had written about him, and it's not clear when the affair starts."

Enough with the journalistic ethics stuff!

Is that really what this story is about, journalistic ethics?

This is a journalistic ethics scandal?

That's ridiculous.

Speaking of ethics, one aspect of this story that's not receiving appropriate attention is the anonymous source, the one with access to the smoking gun communications between Flynn and McBride.

About the "juicy" information supplied by the source, Bice says, "Actually, there was a lot that I had to... I mean, there was... we were up late trying to figure out what we could and what we couldn't include. And, you know, some of it is incredibly graphic. And we decided not to include some of that."

Bice throws out that he's in possession of "incredibly graphic" e-mails between Flynn and McBride. Just making that statement is damaging. How does Bice define "incredibly graphic"?

He's a tease engaged in an "I've got a secret" sort of game that promotes gossip. That's not very ethical.

Bice gives an account of an encounter he had with Paul Bucher, Jessica McBride's husband, when he showed up at his house.

"Last week, he threw me off the property. And he's threatened to have the cops called on me for asking questions about this."

I don't think it's unreasonable for Bucher to demand that Bice leave him and his family alone when they're at their home. I don't see Bice as a victim or Bucher as the bad guy.

Because of Bucher's reaction, Bice concludes that the letters are "probably" from Flynn and McBride.

There's a lot of conjecture.

Bice returns to the nature of the letters. "The letters... I don't think we can publish things because they are incredibly graphic."

What's that supposed to mean?

Is it necessary to note how graphic he thinks the letters are? What's the point of that other than to do more harm?

Isn't the point of running this story really just to sell more newspapers, and boost ratings on WTMJ and TMJ4?

There are a number of unanswered questions that are important.

I want to know how someone gets their hands on such personal communications.

I question if it was done legally. Does Bice know?

I want to know why this anonymous source would choose to take that information to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Certainly, people are aware of less than flattering happenings in the lives of public figures and they don't run to the media with the details.

I want to know who wanted to trash Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride. Was someone out to damage Paul Bucher?

Are these politically motivated dirty tricks?

Bice claims he has no clue about his source. I wonder if he's at all curious.
___________________

UPDATE, June 22, 2009: The McBride Affair

And how the Journal Sentinel got it dead wrong.
___________________

UPDATE, June 27, 2009: Murphy, McBride, and Bice

Dan Bice and Jessica McBride

I get the feeling Dan Bice likes the spotlight. It's heady stuff. In the past two days, he's made TV appearances, given radio interveiws, received lots of reaction and feedback from the public.

It seems he enjoys being a star reporter, sort of like a composite of Woodward and Bernstein.

Naturally, Bice continues to milk the story he chose to spill, the affair between Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride.

Writing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bice addresses the statement that McBride issued on Friday. In the process, he takes some very cheap shots at McBride.

Bice clings to his discussion about ethics and objectivity in journalism at the same time that he's making his differences with McBride very personal.

Local journalist Jessica McBride confirmed Friday that she had an affair earlier this year with Police Chief Edward A. Flynn, someone about whom she had written a glowing profile for Milwaukee Magazine.

Flynn has acknowledged the indiscretion and has asked the city to forgive him. News of the affair blew through City Hall and the Milwaukee Police Department while dominating talk radio Friday.

For better than two weeks, McBride declined to answer a series of phone calls, e-mails and other inquiries. But on the day No Quarter disclosed the relationship and Flynn's apology, McBride issued a statement trying to explain her actions.

"The romantic relationship with Chief Flynn began in May at Brocach's Irish Pub - four months after I completed and turned in the Milwaukee Magazine article," she wrote.

That's, in short, what she put out there.

Even more interesting is what she left out.

Her statement fails to address details from a letter that she wrote to Flynn last month. In that note, the 39-year-old journalist describes how it was love at first sight during her first interview with the 61-year-old top cop. She also suggests that her feelings and attitude toward the chief affected her handling of the story.

It's really a stretch for Bice to be basing his case against McBride on her alleged declaration of "love at first sight."

A statement like that made in retrospect doesn't prove anything.

Speaking of love at first sight, I wonder what Bice thinks of the ethics of members of the national and local media and the way they cover Obama. We know when it comes to Obama, it was love at first sight for many of them, and they make no apologies about it. In the case of their coverage of Obama, we're talking about the media playing a crucial role in influencing the public's view of life-altering policy matters and critical information to the country's future. Although Obama's plans should be relayed truthfully to the public in a balanced and unbiased manner, that, of course, is not happening. No problem with that.

But in the case of McBride's Milwaukee Magazine profile on Flynn, we're supposed to accept the premise that the article had a tremendous impact on the city, that it was such a powerful piece that it significantly affected the public. I think that's overstating it more than a bit. The notion that "love at first sight" forces being part of that article worked to alter and undermine the course of events in the city is ludicrous.

I don't get why Bice is determined to destroy McBride's reputation as a journalist. He is bent on slamming her for violating journalistic ethics, even though she clarifies that she wrote the article before she became personally involved with Flynn.

He seems to dismiss the e-mail from Ed Flynn that she included with her statement, an e-mail that's important to the time line of events in the matter.

Sure, Bice acknowledges its existence but he chooses not to give it the significance it deserves. He tucks two sentences about that e-mail in his column and never discusses how it throws off the theory about the start of the relationship between Flynn and McBride that he has pieced together.

...On Friday, McBride released an e-mail from Flynn from late April in which he praised her magazine story, titled "The Cop Who Can't Stop," and invited her out for coffee, presumably at the Irish tavern. She said she turned in the story in January and that it hit the newsstands in mid-April.

"At the time of the Brocach's meeting in May," her statement says, "I was an academic who no longer covered Flynn and would not ever do so again."

Instead of admitting that the e-mail calls into doubt his assertions that McBride played the part of an unethical journalist in this drama, he simply tosses the information aside and goes on the attack.

It's odd to me that McBride's Milwaukee Magazine article has taken on such importance. I wasn't aware of it until Thursday night. Was it really so influential that it should receive all this focus? Was it influential at all? I think the power of the profile is being greatly overestimated by Bice. All this ethical scrutiny over a profile piece in Milwaukee Magazine? That seems a bit much.

Apparently, Bice doesn't like McBride's attitude.

...Unlike Flynn, she offered no apologies for the liaison, though she said she has "addressed the relationship with those who need to know the details." She is married to former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, an unsuccessful candidate for attorney general in 2006.

Overall, the tone of Flynn's statement was contrite, whereas McBride's was combative.

The stakes for her, though, are pretty high.

McBride, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has taught ethics as part of her journalism classes. Reporters are forbidden from writing about individuals to whom they have strong personal ties.

In the next year or two, McBride will be up for "indefinite status," which is similar to tenure for academic staff members. Officials in the journalism department have declined to comment so far on the matter.

In Bice's view, McBride doesn't show the proper contriteness. So Bice deems her to be "combative."

I don't think it's fair for Bice to complain that McBride is combative just because she's trying to set the record straight and defend herself against his accusations.

Bice suggests that McBride is lying because her career in UWM's journalism department is on the line. In effect, he says that she can't afford to be contrite, like Flynn, because the stakes for her are "pretty high."

That's lame. He's concocting a motivation for her to allegedly mischaracterize events.

Bice concedes that the stakes are high for Flynn, too. "[I]t's not as if Flynn is out of the woods," he writes.

No kidding.

Bice doesn't address the fact that the stakes are high for the city of Milwaukee. He doesn't point out Flynn's successes and the progress he's made in the city.

I don't know if Bice realizes that being responsible for hyping a campaign to run Flynn out of town and ruin McBride professionally would not be a proud legacy.
___________________

UPDATE, June 22, 2009: The McBride Affair

And how the Journal Sentinel got it dead wrong.
___________________

UPDATE, June 27, 2009: Murphy, McBride, and Bice

Jessica McBride's Statement

Jessica McBride has issued a statement addressing her affair with Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn.

From 620 WTMJ:

It is because the relationship with Police Chief Flynn has unfortunately become public that this statement is released. This was a deeply personal matter between two adults who have addressed the relationship with those who need to know the details. I am grateful to my family, friends and the many other people who have expressed kindness and support. It is truly humbling.

The romantic relationship did not occur until long after the reporting and editing of the magazine article on Chief Flynn. I completed and turned in the Milwaukee Magazine story on Chief Flynn on Jan. 5, 2009 and a final edit was turned in Feb. 16. The story was in mailboxes in mid-April. At that point, my professional relationship with him had ended.

The romantic relationship with Chief Flynn began in May at Brocach’s Irish pub – four months after I completed and turned in the Milwaukee Magazine article.

Contrary to a media report, I never interviewed Chief Flynn at Brocach’s. Prior to my May social meeting with him at Brocach’s, I only met with and interviewed Chief Flynn once in December 2008 at the police department with other officers and the public information spokeswoman for MPD present. At the time of the Brocach’s meeting in May, I was an academic who no longer covered Flynn and would not ever do so again.

I ask that the media now respect the privacy of all of the parties involved.

In addition to providing a statement, McBride included an e-mail from Ed Flynn to verify her story.

It looks like holier-than-thou, ethical journalism expert Dan Bice has some retracting to do.

This solidifies my belief that Bice would do well writing for a tabloid.

All those who jumped to conclusions about McBride's lack of journalistic ethics need to reassess their criticism.
___________________

UPDATE, June 22, 2009: The McBride Affair

And how the Journal Sentinel got it dead wrong.
___________________

UPDATE, June 27, 2009: Murphy, McBride, and Bice

Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride

TMJ4 led off its 10:00 PM newscast last night with what Mike Jacobs called "blockbuster news."

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn admitted having an affair. Flynn, a married man, had an affair with Jessica McBride, "a prominent local journalist." She's married to former Waukesha County D.A. Paul Bucher.

Jacobs said that McBride wrote a "favorable article about the chief in the May edition of Milwaukee Magazine."

Read McBride's article, "The Cop Who Can't Stop," here.

TMJ4 brought in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigative columnist Dan Bice to discuss the "blockbuster news" live.

Carole Meekins said that Bice "will break this story in tomorrow morning's paper." Actually, I think he broke it on TV.

Bice sounded like a reporter for The National Enquirer.

TMJ4 continued with Team Coverage.

Team coverage?

Good grief.

Charles Benson covered reaction to Flynn's affair, including Mayor Tom Barrett's response. Barrett has "talked to Chief Flynn about the affair and is standing by the chief."

Benson also relayed a statement from police union president John Balcerzak.

Jacobs breathlessly concluded the over 4 minutes of the newscast devoted to the affair with this:

Again, tonight's big story: Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn admits to having an affair. And for more information, don't miss Dan Bice's story in tomorrow's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, also JS Online.

Here's the TMJ4 video:



I think it's pretty sleazy for TMJ4 to hype Bice's "exclusive" in the Journal Sentinel. I think it's rather sleazy of Bice to hawk his tabloid exclusive.

Is this TMJ or TMZ?

I don't see the affair as "blockbuster news." It might be considered "blockbuster" for a tabloid, but I don't see how this is BIG news for the community.

Obviously, committing adultery is not a commendable act. Betraying one's spouse and family speaks to one's character.

I'm not diminishing the importance of character, especially when it concerns a person in a position of authority like the police chief.

But this is a personal matter.

This affair can't be compared to other sex scandals involving prominent public figures.

For instance, former mayor John Norquist's affair also involved charges of sexual harassment.

Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct with Monica Lewinsky was an issue because it involved lying under oath and obstruction of justice by the president of the United States.

The sex scandal that drove Eliot Spitzer out of office involved a prostitute.

It doesn't appear that the affair between Flynn and McBride had any factors like those that would make it of importance to the public.

Nonetheless, TMJ4 and Bice consider it to be "blockbuster news."

Why? Because this sort of drama draws an audience?

From Dan Bice, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

When journalist Jessica McBride penned a glowing, 5,400-word profile of Police Chief Edward A. Flynn for Milwaukee Magazine earlier this year, many in the Milwaukee Police Department jokingly dismissed it as a love letter to the chief.

Little did they know.

Sometime earlier this year, Flynn and McBride struck up a romantic relationship.

Asked about the affair, the 61-year-old chief issued a statement Thursday acknowledging his indiscretion - without mentioning McBride, 39, by name.

"I have done my wife and family a great wrong, and I profoundly regret the hurt I have inflicted on them and others affected by my conduct," Flynn wrote. "I accept the personal and public consequences of my private behavior. I have damaged my public reputation and violated the trust and love of my family."

McBride - a journalism lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a former Journal Sentinel reporter - has refused to respond to numerous messages about the liaison. McBride has been a prominent figure in the community, serving as a talk-show host and political blogger.

I don't like Bice's smarmy handling of this story.

Bice pins the Scarlet Letter on McBride. He's outed Flynn as an adulterer.

Is Bice's prurient work done here?

Of course not. There's so much more.

...No Quarter first became aware of Flynn's relationship with McBride this month when someone anonymously sent a letter and e-mails purportedly written by the pair to one another.

"Perceived you instantly - knew you were a good person who does things for the right reason," reads one signed Jessica. "As a result, I began to struggle with the story - having to give time to vitriolic baseless attacks."

The affair may violate a basic tenet of journalism, particularly if, as the exchanges suggest, the two became involved while McBride was working on the lengthy article for the magazine's May issue. Reporters are strictly forbidden from writing about individuals with whom they have strong personal ties.

"It taints the nature of the piece," said Jeffrey Seglin, a national journalism ethics expert from Boston.

Gee, thanks for sharing that e-mail with us, Dan.

And thanks for pointing out McBride's possible violation of a "basic tenet of journalism."

Good work getting that comment from a "national journalism ethics expert" to support your accusation.

Now that's real journalism.

McBride, who worked at the Journal Sentinel full time from 1994 to 2004, supervises an online student publication that writes regularly about the Milwaukee Police Department.

Another leading ethicist, Rushworth Kidder, agreed with Seglin but said the bigger issue has to do with Flynn.

"The nature of a police chief's job, with all due respect to the medical profession, is not like being a dentist or dermatologist, where you can go home and have your weekends to yourself," said Kidder, founder of the Institute for Global Ethics. "It's 24-7.

"What are we to make of the sense of integrity of an individual who has got to be treading carefully with a bunch of things he would prefer to hide on one hand and yet on the other side is being asked to be completely open and honest and to set the model for integrity for others?"

In his statement, Flynn, who came to Milwaukee in January 2008, said he has talked with those closest to him about the affair.

"The people in my personal and professional life who needed to know the painful truth, know it and I have apologized to them," he wrote. "This is a personal matter that occurred in my private, off-duty time. I will continue to devote myself to making Milwaukee a better place.

"I hope that the people of this city who so warmly welcomed me can eventually forgive me."

Flynn issued the statement after he and McBride spent the better part of two weeks dodging questions.

Last week, police officials barred No Quarter from attending a news conference for fear the chief might be asked about McBride. After a press event this week, the chief twice stopped and stared in silence when asked if he could talk about the matter. His press aide had been given a series of questions about the relationship this month.

Bice really rips Flynn on the integrity issue.

I guess this is payback for being barred from Flynn's news conference and Flynn failing to comment about the affair when asked.

McBride has remained mum. She did not return calls, e-mails to her personal account, or notes sent to her via Facebook. But her husband, former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, has talked privately about the relationship with others. Bucher, who ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general in 2006, spoke briefly to No Quarter about the matter, saying it was a personal issue.

Bice clearly is struggling to make the case that this is more than a personal issue.

I suppose he needs to do that to justify the pain and embarrassment his revelations are sure to bring to the spouses and children of Flynn and McBride.

...No Quarter has not yet determined the anonymous source of the letter and e-mails. Until Flynn released his apology, neither party would answer phone calls, face-to-face interview requests or written questions. Details in the letter and e-mails match recent events in their lives, including McBride's trip to Paris, Flynn's testimony before a U.S. Senate committee and the recent birth of his grandchild. The letter is a four-page, handwritten note addressed "Dear Ed" and signed Jessica.

Did Bice wonder about the anonymous source, that individual's motivation for sharing the letter and e-mails?

How did the individual access this personal information anyway?

Did the anonymous source obtain it legally? Does Bice care?

Certainly, Bice's anonymous source is not someone interested in sparing Flynn or McBride humiliation. It could be someone with an interest in damaging the standing of Flynn's authority in the community. If so, Bice is playing the willing stooge.

Bice goes on to quote from McBride's Milwaukee Magazine article on Flynn.

The story, entitled "The Cop Who Can't Stop," referred to Flynn as a "bold choice." McBride talked up his strong résumé, energy and fitness, edgy sense of humor and success at MPD's helm. He is referred to in the story as "blunt yet charming."

"Flynn is also a compelling physical presence: tall, iron-haired, fit (he once rode a bicycle 233 miles) and energetic. He has what one observer calls 'command bearing,' " McBride wrote of the chief. "But was he too good to be true?"

The handwritten note discussed her writing process.

"Just felt a little protective. Knew I didn't want to do you wrong," the letter says.

It says the two became involved after an interview at Brocach Irish Pub and Restaurant on Water St.

"I honestly had myself almost convinced that we were going to talk about the police department at (Brocach) that night!" it says. "Now that sounds so naïve. But something special happened between us that night; I will always cherish it. A complete meeting on all levels - mind, body, heart that I have never experienced. You completed me that night."

Splashing this is real "blockbuster" stuff, isn't it? Bice's agenda is so transparent.

Sorry, but I can't get disturbed about possible journalistic ethics violations in McBride's profile of Flynn.

Who cares?

It's not a hard news piece.

If Bice wants to uncover ethical problems in local journalism he should investigate TMJ4's "Dirty Dining." I guess he'd have a conflict of interest with that.

Throughout Bice's EXCLUSIVE, he stresses ethics. McBride taught ethics in her journalism classes at UWM. Although he doesn't come out and say it, Bice is charging her with hypocrisy.

Bice adds that he talked with Paul Brewer, head of UWM's Journalism and Mass Communications Department. Bice informs us that he wasn't aware of the relationship. He is now.

Apparently, Bice has been very busy lately, sharing his story, spreading the word, scorching the earth.

...Several of the e-mails suggest that both were love-struck.

Bice has missed his calling. He really should write for The Enquirer.

Bice goes on to give some juicy quotes. ENOUGH! The details he provides are totally unnecessary. It's lurid, tabloid crap.

Bice blathers about integrity and ethics.

Does he consider himself to be beyond reproach in that area? He shouldn't.

I think this is a hit piece, plain and simple. It's unnecessarily detailed. Bice coaxes the reader to conclude that this very personal matter is of great significance to the community and an important public issue.

Of course, it's of tremendous significance to Flynn and his family, and McBride and her family.

Thanks to Bice, their families won't have the luxury of dealing with the betrayal of the affair privately. Their personal pain is now public record. That has to add to their anguish.

Bottom line: Flynn owned up to his behavior and made a fitting apology. That should be the end of it. I don't think this will impact his ability to serve as police chief.

The affair was a personal failing for both Flynn and McBride. They'll suffer the consequences in their personal lives, but hopefully not in their professional lives.

Their relationships with their spouses and children and everyone they know are altered. Nothing can change that.

Flynn is a flawed man, and McBride is a flawed woman. That comes with the territory of being human.

As for Bice, I think he should have major regrets as well.
________________

UPDATE: McBride Issues Statement on Affair

I think Bice may need to issue a statement, too. It appears that he has to make some retractions. His pontificating on ethics in journalism seems more than a bit awkward now.
________________

UPDATE, June 22, 2009: The McBride Affair

And how the Journal Sentinel got it dead wrong.
________________

UPDATE, June 27, 2009: Murphy, McBride, and Bice

The Murda Mobb and Rap

This is an interesting Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece from July 2001, by Jessica McBride and James H. Burnett III:

Six north side acquaintances are responsible for at least seven murders, including five around the Metcalfe Park neighborhood since June, and one in Mequon last month, police said Monday.

While Police Chief Arthur Jones said the men were not members of an organized gang, at least two of the suspects claim membership in an aspiring rap group that calls itself the "Murda Mobb."

Law enforcement sources previously said the Murda Mobb was a crew of gangsters involved in shootings, and robberies of drug dealers.

The members, who hung out in the area of N. 27th and W. Clarke streets, quickly earned a more sinister reputation for robbing drug dealers. Several of the murders they are charged with fit that pattern.

At least one of the suspects has a "Murda Mobb" tattoo similar to those worn by others in the group, founded by two brothers who were Gangster Disciples gang members in Chicago before moving to Milwaukee. The brothers - who have long criminal records - have not been charged with murders.

In custody Monday were Jeremy L. Harris, 20, Demetrius Powell, 20, Alvin M. Cooley, 17, Jovan M. Gray, 19, Decarlos Young, 24, and Andrew Roberts, 21, all of Milwaukee.

Jones said police arrested the six men on different occasions from June 7 through July 25.

"The men know each other, and obviously they worked together on some of the homicides," Jones said of the suspects, adding that some of them are being investigated in other unsolved homicides. Charges have been filed in six of the seven murders and are expected in the seventh shortly.

At a news conference, Jones said the motives for the slayings varied.

"Some of it was drugs and some of it was personal conflicts between individuals," the chief said. "Obviously, some of these individuals don't have a high regard for human life. They were engaged in robberies and revenge killings for various reasons. Obviously, they are very dangerous people."

Jones said just one of the murder suspects had identified himself to police as "Murda Mobb" and added: "We are still working to establish whether there is a Murda Mobb."

In a jailhouse interview after Monday's news conference, Roberts said the group does exist and that he's a member, along with Young. Though Powell and Harris hung around and claimed to belong, Roberts said they were not members.

"Everyone wanted to be part of the Murda Mobb, including the kids around the neighborhood," Roberts said.

Back in 2001, Police Chief Arthur Jones said the department was still trying to establish whether or not the Murda Mobb existed.

Of course, that's no longer an issue.

McBride and Burnett go on to give a history of the Murda Mobb and the rap connection.

Antoine Crittenden, one of the Chicago brothers who claims to have co-founded the Murda Mobb, said in a jailhouse interview earlier this month that he is a former regent in the Gangster Disciples gang who moved to Milwaukee from Chicago after getting out of prison. Crittenden also has the words "Murda Mobb" tattooed on his forearms. He is being held in the jail on an unrelated armed robbery charge.

Crittenden and Roberts both rapped lyrics from their songs, which are filled with expletives and violent sentiments. The men stressed the Murda Mobb members were merely writing about the violent world they grew up in.

Crittenden's song was called "Two to the Head."

"It's what sells," he said, shrugging.

Both Crittenden and Roberts, however, deny that the Murda Mobb is a criminal gang.

In the case of Crittenden and Andrew Roberts, they portrayed themselves to be artists. They denied that the Murda Mobb was a criminal gang.

They wrote songs. Their "art" was an outgrowth of the mean streets they grew up on.

Of course, not all rap music is violent and filled with expletives. Some is. Certainly, Antoine Crittenden's songs are.

This brings up a chicken and the egg question.

Did rap glamorize the thug life and entice the Crittenden brothers and others mentioned in the article to go down that path?

Or were they amoral thugs to begin with and naturally latched on to the thug life portrayed in some rap music?

Who knows?

But where there's rap glorifying violence, there MIGHT (I said "MIGHT") be criminals.

Wisconsin Blogosphere Ugly

I've just been catching up on the Left-Right drama taking place among some Wisconsin bloggers, specifically the vile attacks on Jessica McBride by Illusory Tenant and Jim Bouman.

There's debate about which side is uglier.

Are the liberal bloggers more offensive? Do conservatives go over the line more often?

Each side can cite examples of foul cyber-behavior. Others have done that already so I won't bother to add to the list.

Naturally, I'm biased about which side stoops lower. I've been the target of some horrible attacks. I've experienced really hateful stuff, some from anonymous sources and some from sources that I could hold accountable.

If I feel myself becoming desensitized to the vitriol that too often passes for discourse on the Internet, I will leave and not return.

I refuse to accept terribly degrading names, particularly demeaning insults, extremely vulgar language, cyberstalking, and physical threats as typical, everyday Internet behavior.

I see that stuff as a really disturbing social trend, the coarsening of the culture.

It's as if some people find it acceptable to check their consciences at the door when they enter cyberspace.

The comfort of supposed anonymity brings out the worst in some people. There's nothing about the Internet in itself that creates their detestable behavior. But I think it provides some really sick people with an opportunity to express a side of their true selves that might otherwise remain hidden.

Illusory Tenant's use of the C-word to refer to Jessica McBride is an example.

After Illusory Tenant issued an apology of sorts, JIM BOUMAN goes beyond using vulgarities and strikes at McBrides's family, her children. That speaks volumes about Jim Bouman the person, not Jim Bouman as an Internet personality.

(Note: Bouman has also apologized to McBride.)

I can empathize with her. One's family, especially one's children, should be strictly off limits. Debates can become heated. There can be bad feelings; but the feuding should stop with the parties involved and not ensnare innocents.

What troubles me most is the complete absence of shame, the "I can say what I want and no one will ever find out" attitude.

I don't care whether one's real identity is a secret to most. Only a bad person would spew insults and mercilessly harass another human being rather than dealing with disagreements in a civil fashion.

When ADULTS act like junior high school bullies, there's a problem, a serious lack of maturity and character and decency.

Just because one is tapping away at a keyboard and staring at a monitor rather than speaking while looking into someone's eyes does NOT permit one to chuck one's values.

Things are said and done online that probably wouldn't happen in face to face interaction. Hate seems to come too easily.

I think the ugliness flows because of a sense of detachment. There's a type of dehumanization that occurs in the absence of flesh and blood.

Never forget you're interacting with real people.

Mark Belling Slams WTMJ

Mark Belling waited until the last half hour of his three hour show to address the WTMJ shakeup.

He gave his audience a tease at the beginning of his show that he would be discussing the matter in the final hour.

I guess the firing of Jessica McBride and the local talk radio wars must interest a lot of people.

Basically, Belling charged WTMJ with lying.

He said that WTMJ general manager Jon Schweitzer was backtracking from previous comments about the firing of Jessica McBride, citing an email.

Belling charged that Schweitzer was trying to make it appear that a now controversial segment McBride did last week had nothing to do with her firing.

He believes that WTMJ was going to fire her anyway, but that the station used the incident as an excuse to take her off the air, that it did factor into the timing of her dismissal.

Belling claimed that now the management was sanitizing the reason that McBride was fired.

He went on to say that McBride had emailed him. She told Belling that she was asked by WTMJ management to talk less about conservative issues (President Bush, Jim Doyle, taxes) and more about lifestyle issues.

Supposedly, WTMJ's focus group research has shown people want less conservative talk.

Really? I wonder about the makeup of that focus group.

I haven't listened to Dennis Miller, but I'm guessing that his show is conservative. How does the change in personnel play into WTMJ's desire to diversify the content of its programming?

Belling did address the comments that Charlie Sykes made this morning.

Belling said that when he discussed the McBride matter last week, he didn't want to be too critical of Sykes, given his recent personal loss. However, today he would not cut Sykes slack for failing to strongly criticize WTMJ management. He said that Sykes has enough clout at the station to throw his weight around.

As far as Sykes' suggestion that Belling should convince WISN to hire McBride, Belling disregarded that completely. He didn't address it all.

In sum, Belling accused WTMJ of silencing conservative voices, a trend in radio that he fears. He claimed the station was lying about its reasons for letting McBride go.

Again, that's a difficult case to make, since Dennis Miller can't be doing a Gordon Hinckley "Ask your Neighbor" sort of show. And Miller isn't a Clark Howard type. I'm sure Miller will be talking about Bush.

Belling said that he's not afraid to criticize his management when he disagrees and he chastised on-air personalities at WTMJ for being afraid to do the same.

To be continued?

Jessica McBride, Charlie Sykes, and Mark Belling: As the Radio Dial Turns

UPDATE, June 19, 2009: Ed Flynn and Jessica McBride
_________________

Milwaukee's Newsradio 620 WTMJ-AM and FM station WKTI had a massive personnel shakeup last week.

Gene Mueller of WKTI left the morning post that he's held for 25 years to join John Jagler as the morning guy on WTMJ.

He replaced Ken Herrera. Ken was axed.

The changes didn't stop there. Jessica McBride, nighttime talker in WTMJ's 8:00 to 11:00 PM slot when no sports broadcasts were aired, also was canned.

Her replacement? Dennis Miller.


Many listeners weren't happy.

Read some of their reactions.

Lefty bloggers, on the other hand, celebrated McBride's departure.

They had stalked her, dissecting her every word. They went after her with an almost religious zealotry. They declared virtual Jihad.

Read these positively obsessive rantings.

Really creepy.

Some anti-McBride bloggers created a controversy, the Jasmine Owens matter.

Read more.

My opinion on that: There's no question that McBride was unfairly accused of mocking 4-year-old Owens' death.

On the personnel side of things, I think WTMJ made a mistake by taking McBride off the air.

As much as I like Dennis Miller in general (I haven't heard his radio show), it was good to have a LOCAL talker and a woman's voice at the station.

A syndicated show, particularly at that hour, is just a regurgitation of the stuff that talk radio listeners have heard all day. McBride offered a live, fresh, LOCAL perspective.

This story doesn't stop there.

Last week, Mark Belling spoke out about the firing of McBride. (He had also noted that some in the Hispanic community weren't happy with the firing of Ken Herrera.)

Belling had sharp words for WTMJ talker Charlie Sykes. He belittled Sykes for not defending Jessica McBride.

Today, Sykes fired back, and threw the ball in Belling's court.

Listen to Sykes' response.

He challenges Belling to "demand that the management of WISN radio hire Jessica McBride."

Sykes said that if Belling really feels so strongly about McBride being removed from the air, then he should use his weight to get her back on Milwaukee radio and put her on his show.

Will Belling respond to Sykes or will he avoid the challenge, claiming ignorance?

I've heard him say that he doesn't listen to WTMJ, which is quite surprising given that he's so quick to criticize the station and mock its personalities.

We'll have to see what happens next.

Will Belling be a man and walk the walk; or will he cower?

The bottom line:

Whenever Milwaukee radio loses a LOCAL voice, that's bad for the community -- metro Milwaukee and beyond.

I suspect that Jessica McBride will continue to influence local media and raise issues that matter to the community, whether she's on the radio or not.

That's good for Milwaukee.

Mentors, Saviors

Eugene Kane wrote a nice column about how important it is to not give up on kids that have made poor choices.

He points out, "Even if they've been in trouble with the law, hopefully they are still young enough to learn from their mistakes."

Kane detailed his participation in a Black History Month program.

The room where I went to speak Tuesday was filled with approximately 60 kids - mostly African-American - exhibiting that time-honored look of boredom that young people everywhere get whenever adults are trying to jam some sense into their heads.

But attendance at this Black History Month program was required. The location was a juvenile corrections center on the north side; most of the youths have been in serious trouble for incidents that landed them in facilities like Ethan Allen for boys or Southern Oaks for girls.

...Patricia Bridges, a parole officer who has coordinated the Black History Month program for the Milwaukee juvenile corrections division for eight years, thinks these young black people needed - and deserved - better direction from the adults in their lives.

..."You have to show them someone cares," she insisted. "They need something to hold on to daily. Some of them want to do right, but they get swayed by other people who don't want to do right."

That's why this particular Black History Month program was something the kids in the room needed to sit through, even if they wanted to be somewhere else. At least in this room, there were adults who cared for them and wanted them to succeed.

Kane makes a compelling case for responsible adults to serve as mentors to at risk kids in the African-American community.

If only Kane would put his words into action.

About a year ago, Jessica McBride blew the whistle on Kane's hypocrisy.

I wonder. Since then, did he have a change of heart and become a mentor himself?

These kids need far more than a Black History Month program. They need the presence of adults in their lives, to care for them and help them to succeed.

I hope Kane is now practicing what he preaches.

Update: BLOG WARS

The latest on the Milwaukee Blog Wars can be found at McBride's Media Matters.

Jessica McBride has asked the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to print a retraction for the comments Eugene Kane made about her yesterday in his column.

In addition, the two exchanged e-mails today.

From Kane:

Jessica

Seriously, did you really think you could take a pretty harsh shot at me and my integrity and expect me not to respond?

You HAVE changed, don’t deny it. That’s your right. Maybe it is a sign of your personal growth.

But understand, you threw the first punch. (Actually, you slammed me before in your blog but I decided to let it slide. Not this time.)

I’m from North Philly; nobody gets a free shot at me without getting smacked right back.

Feel free to post it if you want.

Eugene Kane
Columnist
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Although Kane gave McBride the green light to post his message, I feel like I'm eavesdropping on a personal matter here.

Most likely that's because, to a certain extent, it is a personal matter between the former Journal Sentinel colleagues.

However, when public figures have squabbles, they carry more weight, particurlarly when the personal integrity and character of the individuals are the issue. They each have an interest in maintaining and defending the persona on which they've built their careers.

At least Kane is acknowledging that he gave McBride quite a hit. Unfortunately, he makes no apologies. He justifies his column slamming McBride, conservative talk radio, and conservative bloggers by pointing out that he's from North Philly.

Apparently, in North Philly, unfounded personal attacks are proper etiquette when one has been admonished for questionable behavior.

Kane's "you did it first" line comes off as childish. It makes me wonder whether he would have made a good mentor for "Sam."

As McBride points out, we'll never know if Kane could have been a positive influence in the teen's life. Could he have helped to steer "Sam" off the path that led him to prison?

It's the tragedy of what might have been.

McBride's reply to Kane's e-mail:

Gene,

You made a good point about my not knowing if you've mentored other youths. If you have, good for you, that's a great thing. But I feel like it could have made a real difference to "Sam" had a professional black male taken any interest in him. I was disappointed no one would.

And it bothered me alot that you didn't confine your criticism to me, but rather implied that Sam was destined to fail and not the "type" who could be helped. I don't believe that was the case at all. I do not believe he was a person not worthy of spending time on. You said you were right and point out he ended up in prison almost as if to say, See I was right! I don't think that's fair.

Secondly, you stated in the paper that I said something - or "agreed" to something - that I never did. I never agreed that talk radio were "ridiculous social provocateurs" nor did I ever say or think that...

Those two things are what bother me.

Jessica

I'm glad that Kane and McBride are communicating. She responded honestly, with substance and respect, as opposed to Kane's juvenile approach.

(I hope Dr. Phil doesn't get wind of this and schedule a special hour with Jessica and Eugene, overflowing with his trademark goofy analogies and psychobabble.)

McBride then gives her reaction to the e-mail exchange:

Since Eugene now acknowledges he was just trying to get back at me, will the Journal Sentinel give me my retraction now (I officially requested one from the editors both yesterday and again today)?

A retraction?

No way. I would be amazed. It wouldn't fit the agenda of a liberal outlet like the Journal Sentinel.

I have nothing against Eugene Kane personally. In the newsroom, I did get along with him as a person, as I said before. I don't let politics stand in the way of personal interaction with co-workers. In other words, I have friends who are liberal, conservative, Independent, apolitical, religious, secular, and so on. I don't make a person's politics a litmus test for friendship or co-worker interaction. In person, Eugene is a more thoughtful and open-minded individual than he often seems in print. In person, he's sort of soft-spoken actually and he doesn't run around ranting and raving. But I don't agree with Eugene's politics, generally speaking. I did not then, and I do not now. I tried to avoid getting into such political discussions when I was at the paper. I HAVE changed - from a reporter who was not allowed to express a political point of view because I was a reporter - to an opinion writer who does. So, I am not surprised people think I've changed because I didn't run around spouting political beliefs in the newsroom. Why do I think people wouldn't be surprised if a former reporter started a blog with liberal beliefs?

Here McBride shows her class by giving her readers some insight into the Eugene Kane that Journal Sentinel readers don't get the chance to see.

Given Kane's refusal to back away from his personal attack and his failure to even address the mentoring matter, I think McBride was very kind in her comments. I don't detect any bitterness.

But I do not appreciate Eugene making thousands of readers think we had a conversation that did not exist to get back at me because of my blog. For that, I want a retraction. And, as for Sam, who knows how things would have turned out if a male, particularly a professional black male, had taken some consistent time out of their busy day for him. I guess we will never know. And that's the real tragedy here.

I'm glad McBride isn't backing down from her demand for a retraction. I think the Journal Sentinel owes her one.

If Kane had as much class as McBride, he'd address the issue in a column. Something about personal responsibility and integrity would be nice, or perhaps something about the importance of putting words into action.

There's no question that even if the newspaper won't print a retraction, and Kane doesn't have the decency to clarify the matter in a column, McBride has won this Blog War.

I don't think this was about taking a shot at Kane. It was about holding him accountable.

There's a difference.

"Taking a shot" implies malice. "Holding him accountable" refers to truth and justice; not for McBride's own benefit, but for kids like "Sam."

When all is said and done, I don't really care about determining the winner of the Blog War.

What matters is that this dispute served to highlight the desperate need for intervention in the lives of a generation of criminals in the making.

One thing is indisputable: "Sam" was the loser in all of this.

Sadly, there are so many others in Milwaukee and inner cities around the country likely to make similar poor decisions and follow in "Sam's" footsteps.

The relevant question is: Who cares enough to take the time to save them?

BLOG WARS

There is a battle being waged in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin media, and a lot of bad blood is spilling.

The Old Media, also known as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the New Media, local bloggers and conservative talk radio hosts, are at each others' throats.

It all started with a blog entry written by former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Jessica McBride.



On her blog, McBride's Media Matters, she began telling the story of "Sam," an African-American teen from Milwaukee's inner city.

(Excerpts)

I have decided to write this story because I learned so much about the crisis going on in Milwaukee's inner city through "Sam" - the nuances of it, and the intractability of it. It's particularly important right now in the wake of the Samuel McClain beating, and I have a vehicle through which to tell this story, so I will.

...It starts out just another day covering homicide in Milwaukee's inner city. I am a police reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel when I first meet a boy named Sam. It's 2001, and a sunny day in June, and I am covering a rash of homicides.

...A boy named Sam puts dried flowers on a fence for Rob, the murder victim, half a block down, so I stop to talk with him. They'd grown up together, Sam says, from childhood on, although they'd lost touch in recent years. He is a skinny youth with limpid, childish brown eyes. They are soft and liquid, filled with innocence and warmth. Later I'd learn they could just as quickly harden into obsidian marbles when he is brooding and angry. But on this day, Sam is all wide smiles, big talk, and friendly potential.

...Standing by the fence, Sam tells me about his life, volunteering horrendous things way too freely and casually, as if he doesn't know they aren't the norm. He says he was once shot by a stray bullet, claims his mother was murdered, and comments that Rob was the eighth friend he knows who died violently. I will learn only some of this is true. He's never been shot by a stray bullet, although he was stabbed by an uncle and has the scar on his stomach to prove it. ... And, it's true: His mother isn't here anymore.

...I take Sam's phone number that day by the fence. I might write a story about him, I decide. I want to write a story about an inner city youth just trying to make it. Not the star. Not the criminal. Not the good kid or the bad kid but the kid living in the grays in between.

...I decide to stop by Sam's house and talk with his grandmother about my idea for a story.

...Sam's grandmother asks me to help Sam find a mentor. He had one once, through Children's Court, but the man got too busy and stopped seeing him, and that hurt him. I tell her that I'll help him find one. That's getting a bit too involved in the story but something inside me snaps. I'd covered the stories of too many Sams and too many Robs and I wanted to rewrite the ending of this one.

...But what could a white female in her 30s offer a young African-American male? Sam needed a male role model, I thought. Preferably, an African-American one.

I ask two African-American males at the Journal Sentinel to mentor Sam. Both are prominent columnists who are constantly weighing in on the problems of racism and inner city poverty in Milwaukee.

But neither one is interested in mentoring Sam. They brush me off immediately. Too busy, says one. "If I wanted a child, I'd have one," says another matter-of-factly. In my mind, both of those columnists forfeit the right to pontificate about how others have turned their backs on black, inner city youths. Wishful thinking. They still do it today.

In two paragraphs, war is declared.

One of the columnists, Eugene Kane, has come out swinging.



Kane responds in today's Journal Sentinel, attacking McBride, Milwaukee talk radio personalities, and conservative bloggers.

In "Blogging gives everyone a voice," he writes:

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, has it made a sound?

In a nutshell, that's what I think about most blogs.

The Internet is overrun with blogs. These personal Web sites are written by both amateur and professional journalists with an ax to grind or strong opinions they are dying to express. Many of them are read by only a small group of readers, sometimes just family or friends.

Despite the current hype over bloggers taking on the mainstream media - "MSM" to many bloggers - I believe there's little chance that blogging will replace traditional forms of reporting and commentary. At least, not in the near future.

But yes, they are making an impact.

There's something sad about watching the slow death of the Old Media. (Or should I say, "MSM"?)

Whether it's local or global liberal news outlets, they are all having the same difficulty coming to terms with the fact that their monopoly is history. The fat lady sang. It's over.

Poor Eugene.

I started my "Raising Kane" blog on JSOnline about a month ago, mainly out of desire to explore this new and exciting form of expression and counteract some of the rabid partisan constituency that wants to dominate the field.

"Rabid partisan constituency"?

Is he talking about Daily Kos or AMERICAblog?

Here in Milwaukee there's an active blogging community, particularly when it comes to politics.

Some of it is a byproduct of right-wing talk radio, which makes reading those blogs akin to listening to four hours of our local blowhards rail against liberals, Gov. Jim Doyle, Sen. Russ Feingold, Ald. Michael McGee and the other usual suspects.

It's my humble opinion that the best blogs - like mine at Raising Kane - don't rant and rave as much as refer readers to interesting stories and commentary from other sources.

Blogging is best when it's a clearinghouse for ideas rather than a long-winded exercise in self-congratulatory rhetoric.

This is really ironic.

If you're looking for "long-winded" and "self-congratulatory rhetoric" from Wisconsin media, look no further than Eugene Kane.

If you're in the Milwaukee area looking for a "local blowhard," Kane's your man.

That's what makes his dismissal of McBride's request so slimy. The hypocrisy oozes.

Kane and Milwaukee local talk radio hosts have been taking swipes at each other for years. His shot at them is nothing new. However, Kane is stepping into potentially dangerous territory by attacking conservative bloggers.

Like so many in the Old Media and the OLD OLD Media (Dan Rather), he underestimates the influence of the New Media. There's a reason it's called the WORLD WIDE WEB.

The libs don't learn from the past. They seem plagued by a disorder that compels them to live in it - Iraq is Vietnam, every scandal and non-scandal is Watergate, etc.

Of all their flaws, that probably will be the one that leads to the libs' complete destruction.

Nobody checks your credentials - or your credibility - at the blogosphere door.

Earth to Kane...

Apparently, he hasn't been paying attention to the credibility problems that have surfaced regarding the mainstream media in recent years.

Does Jayson Blair ring a bell?

How about Memogate?

Remember all the "credible" reporting that came out of New Orleans?

I find it interesting that the blogosphere played a significant role in bringing all of those credibility problems to light.

Kane is in no position to be touting the superior credentials of "real" journalists.

One newly popular right-wing blogger has made a reputation slamming her former colleagues at the Journal Sentinel as she scales the blogosphere mountain.

The peculiar thing is that less than five years ago I remember the same blogger agreeing with me that most of Milwaukee's right-wing talk show hosts were ridiculous social provocateurs not worthy of serious consideration.

These days, she's a regular guest on their TV shows.

I guess in the blogosphere, it's relatively easy for a leopard to change its spots if opportunity knocks.

Typical lib MO -- deflect and personally attack when the facts are against you.

What about that mentor thing, Eugene?

As a newspaper guy, I understand the declining circulation of the Journal Sentinel and other major newspapers makes it imperative to find new ways of engaging readers in our product.

...If the battle for new consumers of information and commentary is to be fully engaged, much of it will happen on the Internet.

What?

Did Kane see the light within the space of one column?

At the beginning he said:

Despite the current hype over bloggers taking on the mainstream media - "MSM" to many bloggers - I believe there's little chance that blogging will replace traditional forms of reporting and commentary. At least, not in the near future.

Which is it?

Kane backtracks on his earlier bravado. He needs to edit more carefully.

Why have all these Old Media outlets started blogs to accompany their Internet sites?

It's very simple.

Not only are the newspapers and network news organizations dying, so is their credibility. This is a direct result of the rapid dissemination of information that is possible via the Internet and the blogosphere.

To which I say to bloggers everywhere:

Bring it on.

OK.


You could say that this war, started by McBride's whistleblowing, has become a quagmire for Kane.

At this point, Eugene Kane has two choices in terms of an exit strategy:

1) He can cut and run in disgrace, while continuing to pretend to be an active force for those struggling in Milwaukee's inner city and to be more than just a columnist.

OR

2) He can be a man and acknowledge his hypocrisy, that his actions speak louder than his words. He can mentor an at-risk child.

The right thing to do is obvious.

Kane has already lost this blog war, but maybe something positive can come from his defeat.

Maybe he and the other columnist that McBride refers to will decide to become mentors. Kane could focus on saving a life rather than putting his time into saving face.