Bruce Murphy Responds: McBride-Flynn Affair/Bice Responds to Murphy

Online under Murphy’s Law, Milwaukee Magazine editor Bruce Murphy discussing an article by Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The article discussed an affair between police chief Ed Flynn, and Jessica McBride (a journalist who wrote a profile about Flynn for Milwaukee Magazine).

The Bice article strongly suggested a breach of journalistic ethics by McBride, since a reporter can hardly be expected to write a fair story about somebody she’s having sex with.

Murphy, in effect, accuses Bice of journalistic malfeasance, and he has the goods.

The key issue, of course, is whether McBride was having an affair with Flynn when she was writing the story, or whether it developed later.

Murphy discusses the chronology of the Flynn profile, and it’s pretty clear that the story had long since been finished by McBride before any affair began. The most telling data:

I next kicked the story back to McBride for a rewrite, which she turned in Feb. 16. During the editing process, Jessica pushed me to include a couple [of] negative quotes, which I vetoed as unnecessary because others in the story essentially made the same point, and the story – at 5,400 words – was already quite long. Once again, this wasn’t the behavior of someone being protective of her subject.

The problem of journalists getting too close to their subjects typically occurs for beat reporters, or for writers who spend a long period of time interviewing someone. To fall in love in the course of doing one feature story is, frankly, no easy feat.

Jessica had just one face-to-face interview with Flynn, for six hours in December, with a police lieutenant and the department’s communications director, Anne E. Schwartz, present the entire time. After this, McBride had some follow-up e-mail questions for Flynn. That was the full extent of their communication prior to the release of the story.

A few days after our story went to subscribers in mid-April, Jessica e-mailed me to ask if I had heard anything about it from Flynn. I hadn’t. I would imagine if she was then having an affair, she wouldn’t have had to ask.

Since Bice did his story, McBride has admitted the affair and released a copy of an e-mail from Flynn dated April 23, in which he complimented her story and suggested they get together for coffee. That request eventually led to their first meeting since December, and the first time they ever met alone, at the Brocach Irish Pub & Restaurant on May 1st. The e-mail suggesting coffee is a public record, as Flynn sent it from work. I’m told that Bice requested the chief’s e-mails. If he didn’t, he should have, and he would have found reason to doubt the affair started while McBride was working on the story.

In short, the best evidence is that the affair did not begin until well after the story had been turned in, and Bice ignored that fact.

Murphy particularly objects to the fact that Bice uses the word “interview” to describe their meeting on May 1. A journalist will “interview” the subject of a story, but by this time the story was long since written, turned in and published. “Tryst” or “assignation” would have been good words to use, but “interview” was not. It’s what you would use if you want to imply journalistic misconduct.

Bice Responds

We contacted Dan Bice on vacation in Colorado. He told us he had not read Bruce Murphy’s article in Milwaukee Magazine, but was quite willing to discuss the case in general.

As his articles have made clear, Bice’s only evidence that McBride was carrying on any sort of affair with (or was at least biased toward) Flynn is a passage from a love letter she wrote when their affair got underway months later. She said to Flynn, “Perceived you instantly - knew you were a good person who does things for the right reason. . . . As a result, I began to struggle with the story - having to give time to vitriolic, baseless critics.”

The letter also says “I think there was something from the moment we locked eyes in Anne’s office.” (“Anne,” in this case, is Anne Schwartz, spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Police Department.)

In terms of proving an “improper relationship” at the time McBride was writing the story, that’s about it.

As Murphy points out, love letters aren’t known for a clear-eyed accounting of historical events. Further, at most this is evidence that she was rather smitten by Flynn while she was working on the story. Is this a beach of ethics, or something that journalistic professionalism should overcome? And if journalistic professionalism doesn’t overcome it, is this an ethical breach, or just bad journalism?

Bice argues it’s a breach of ethics. We pointed out to him that, by this standard, about ¾ of the Washington press corp should be fired, since they are clearly smitten with Obama.

We would argue for “bright line” standards where journalistic ethics are concerned. Whether a journalist is smitten by somebody she is writing about (and whether this has distorted the reporting) is very much a judgment call. Whether she and a subject have romped between the sheets is a hard factual issue.

E-mail Withheld?

Bice claims that neither Murphy nor McBride, both of whom knew a story on the affair was in the works, gave him the April 23 e-mail, and thinks they should have. Contrary to the assertion in Bruce Murphy’s story, Bice claims the e-mail was private, and that he could not have gotten it with an open records request.

We e-mailed Bruce Murphy about this, and he tells us that the e-mail was from “eflynn@milwaukee.gov” to McBride’s personal SBC Global account. That, indeed, should be subject to an open records request.

Although Bice rejects the word “blindsided” with regard to the April 23 e-mail, he does say it was “unfair” that it was not given to him, and that McBride wanted to “control” the situation.

Of course, if he actually had evidence that the affair began much earlier while McBride was writing the story, he could have been fairly sure that no such e-mail would turn up. That’s the problem with making assertions without proof: you risk being blown out of the water by hard evidence proving you wrong.

Bice apparently worked quite hard on this story. For example, he went to McBride’s house and rang the doorbell, only to have McBride’s husband Paul Bucher throw him off the property.

Bice disclaims any personal bias against McBride, saying that she has fed him many news tips over the past several years.

Bice also blames Bruce Murphy for not telling readers there was a “problem” with the article on Flynn before the story of the affair broke. Murphy knew about it (Bice was trying to get comments from him and McBride) over two weeks before the Bice column making the whole thing public.

But this rather begs the question. Murphy should have done that if the article on Flynn was tainted. But Murphy insists it was not.

Journalistic Ethics, or Adultery?

So far, we have only dealt with the issue of journalistic ethics.

Frankly, we would rather prefer a world where adultery would cost a police chief, or a journalist, or a professor (McBride teaches at UWM) their job.

But it seems we don’t. Indeed, the 1992 presidential election proved that being a blatant serial adulterer isn’t a disqualification for the presidency.

But both McBride and Flynn are going to have a price to pay for their quite serious moral lapse. This is only fair enough, but we hope both can rebuild and restore their lives.

[updated: 6/23/09, 1:48 p.m.]

Keeping an Eye on the Top Cop

“Flynn Watch” is blog dedicated to chronicling, and evaluating, the performance of Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn.

We can’t think of a person more important to the welfare of people living in (or working in) the City of Milwaukee than the Police Chief.

The blog is brand new, and it remains to be seen whether it has legs, but we wish it well.

Milwaukee’s Top Cop: Chief Ed Flynn at Marquette

It was the latest in a series of talks given at the Marquette Law School: Milwaukee Chief of Police Edward Flynn. After a light lunch, provided by the Law School, we settled in and looked up our computer and the room filled up.

[Live Blog Begins]

12:15 -- Mike Gousha introduces Flynn.

Gousha: “give us your impressions of our city”

Chief: There is a “communal will” to make things better.

Gousha: Why Milwaukee? A lot of people would want to flee.

Chief: I “want to be somewhere that all you abilities will be throughly challenged.” Quotes English scholar who says that how the laws are written is less important than how the laws are enforced.

Milwaukee a city with “significant challenges” and “significant opportunities.”

Gousha: Is this a “daunting task?”

Chief: You should have the opportunity of having daunting tasks. Challenges of this community are not unique, the are part of the “urban fabric of America.”

Big challenge is winning the confidence of communities that need them the most. There are issues to overcome in those communities.

Gousha: Do you feel pressure?

Chief: my job is to be an “enabler.” Responsibility both to motivate and to restrain. We have a culture with very many positive attributes.

There is an imbalance in perceptions. People who have good experiences with the cops tell six people. People who have bad experiences tell 17 or 18 people.

Gousha: Define “success” for me.

Chief: numbers are important, but they only tell about the end state. Somewhere in the accounting we have lost track of the real purpose: an “orderly civic environment.” Wants “orderly public places.” A decrease in arrests can mean you are succeeding. You may have reduced crime (“suppression”) which has reduced arrests.

Citizens attitudes are important. Neighborhood cohesion is good. In some of the worst neighborhoods, nobody is out on the street with a baby carriage because it isn’t safe.

Gousha: What was your reaction to FBI statistics released yesterday? [These showed violent crime nationwide to be down, but Milwaukee crime to be up.]

Chief: Points to lag in FBI statistics. Numbers just released show the picture the first half of 2007. They may not compare Milwaukee to comparable cities. In Springfield, there was a dip in violent crime, and he [Flynn] was a hero. Then there was an upward spike. Bad news.

Gousha: A big problem here, petty disputes that escalate.

Chief: Some things that “only stable families and stable communities” can achieve. It takes a village to raise a child, but the police can help produce the “village.” Local organizations can function well if the community is safe.

Mentions out of wedlock birth rate. Poverty rate.

But these are not an excuse for misconduct.

Cops need to “take on the generation of young men who are creating the problems.”

Maybe the next generation can be helped.

Gousha: You said “you want to get beyond the stale debate of police versus community.”

Chief: Society has changed dramatically since I was in grade school and high school. Things have gotten better. Cops are better trained and more diverse than ever before.

He objects to scapegoating cops based on one or a few examples of misconduct.

There is a lot of community demand for tougher policing. Neighborhoods say “give us more cops,” but then cops do something people object to and “all of a sudden it’s 1965 and I’m Bull Connor.”

For example: cops are taught to keep themselves safe, but this can be scary if you see it.

Gousha: are communities going to interact more with cops on the beat.

Chief: Demands for service make this hard. “Wholesale” vs. “Retail” policing. The former involves keeping public spaces safe. The latter involved calls for service from individuals.

Community needs to understand that there is a tradeoff. People may have to understand that they may get less in personal service if they want gangs on corner, graffiti, etc. taken care of.

Gousha: What should you do about illegal immigration.

Chief: “Stick our fingers in our ears and do our job.” Caring about border security is certainly legitimate, but on the other hand immigration has been good for America.

If I find somebody bleeding that speaks Spanish in the street, is my first question “what is your immigration status?”

[Flynn seems less the politically correct liberal than a bureaucrat who wants to get his job done, and resents external demands that interfer with his core task.]

Flynn adds that were actual criminal activity by illegals is at issue, he’s happy to cooperate with whoever can get the person off the street. [Implicitly including Federal immigration officials.]

Gousha: Is this a “springboard job?”

Chief: I’m committed to stay here for four years. Why did I consider leaving Springfield? “It’s your fault!” Milwaukee people came to me.

Gousha: What about your experience going to Catholic schools.

Chief: It made you very disposed to feel very guilty, and inclined to accept people in police uniforms telling you what to do. [laughter]

Important to have an ideal. Important to have a noble purpose. “When I looked a policing I see a noble enterprise.”

A liberal arts background is a great preparation for dealing with people.

Not a fan of Criminal Justice undergraduate majors.

Enjoyed graduate school. Danger of cop work, you can become “a burnt out cynic.”

Faced a lot of hatred as a cop in the early 70s. Came to understand that cops bond because of common danger.

[Audience Questioning Begins]

Question: Common Grounds initiative

Chief: An experiment in one district right now. We as an agency haven’t embraced it as much as we might. Involves “negotiating” with trouble makers in neighborhoods, but this doesn’t involve making concessions to them. [It sounds more like laying out consequences.]

Question: What about training for community policing?

Chief: Police need problem solving training. Need to get behind the incidents. If a given bar is a source of continued trouble, maybe the owner needs to do some things differently. Cops need to understand neighborhood norms. “Law enforcement” is just part of the job. More of the job is “policing.”

[He seems to mean that the latter involves the totality of keeping neighborhoods safe.]

Question: poverty is high in Milwaukee.

Chief: It’s more likely for crime to cause poverty than for poverty to cause crime. [!!!]

Kids are afraid to go to school (dangerous), afraid to appear “smart” in class. People do not take jobs after dark because it’s unsafe to get to work. We can have an impact on that.

Can we have an effect on the “macro situation” – people having babies, guys abandoning their families, etc. ?

Question: How much doing your own thing, and how much following the lead of other agencies.

Chief: “one of the great things about crime in Milwaukee is that there is enough for everybody.” [laughter]. What we are doing is both.

“We are going to be pushing authority down to the district.”

Question [public defender]: many times young Hispanics and blacks are stopped by police, sometimes without good reason. Perception: “police are an occupying force.” Admits a police interest in maintaining public order is legitimate.

Chief: You have outlined the trade-off here. One of the tools we have is approaching people and asking “who are you and what are you doing here.” We get calls all the time from people saying “I’m afraid to walk down the street because of those guys hanging around.” We have to be professional, but protect public order.

Intervening in minor misbehavior has an effect on street crime. Writing a lot of traffic tickets reduces crime.

Encourages cops to say “hello” to people who are known to be offenders. Encouraged that in Springfield. Wants more interaction with people who make cause problems – but in a respectful way.

Question: what about young people. I’m a mentor of a young kid in the inner city. What do I do encourage him to go into law enforcement.

Chief: I can only say what his mom says: “stay in school, get a diploma.” Maybe technical school is good, wakes up the brain and good things happen.

Policing is the “constant exercise of decision under stress.” We need a maturity of judgment beyond the years of young cops.

Neighborhoods need to reach out to cops just as cops need to reach out to neighborhoods..

Education is essential, it’s a judgment job.

Question: what kind manager do you intend to be? Do you delegate, or do you expect to be out on the street?

Chief: somewhere in the middle. I want to delegate. But I want to see people working too. Wants authority to be delegated down to the level where judgment is made.

Question: Packers or Patriots?

Chief: “You’re asking me whether I’m going to be rooting for the world champion . . . ”

Gousha: “The honeymoon here [in Milwaukee] could be short!” [laughter]

[End Live Blog]

Evaluation

Flynn is basically conservative, and highly sophisticated. He doesn’t seem to care for race hustlers (remember the “all of a sudden it’s 1965 and I’m Bull Connor” comment), but is intensely concerned with the quality of life in “the communities that need [the cops] the most.” He sees getting the respect and cooperation of high crime communities as a “challenge,” but has no illusions about who the good guys and the bad guys are. The cops are the good guys. Law abiding citizens are the good guys.

He passed up several opportunities to agree with simplistic platitudes. He insisted that crime can cause poverty, contrary to the politically correct doctrine that anti-poverty programs rather than cops are what we need more of. He insisted that people who want cops on the beat and highly visible in public spaces may have to accept a lower level of personal service. Maybe people shouldn’t call 911 for every little problem. He could have blandly promised that citizens can have it both ways.

He seemed to understand the role of family structure in producing crime, and even the role of what political scientists call “social capital” -- a network of robust community institutions.

Overarching all of this was a concern for police professionalism.

Can he make things better? Who knows. He’s a guy at the top of a large bureaucracy in a city with large swaths of territory dominated by a culture that creates crime. But if anybody has a shot at it, it’s Flynn.

[Update]

Here, courtesy of the Law School, is the podcast of the talk.