5/7/12, "Milwaukee Police Department website corrects media errors," Jim Romenesko.com
"The Milwaukee Police Department says its The Source website “provides the whole story — the one that television, radio and newspapers don’t have space or time to provide their audiences.” Also, “we’ll correct the news stories that got it wrong and highlight the ones that got it right.”
Police Chief Ed Flynn writes in one post:
This news site replaces the outdated face-to-face briefings with a select few media representatives, with a contemporary platform that enables anyone who wants to, with access to information for all. That is the essence of public information. To the Journal Sentinel I say, “Welcome to the 21st Century.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has aggressively covered the police department, while Milwaukee Magazine has been friendly to Chief Ed Flynn and his department. One of its writers said earlier this year that “no Milwaukee chief in modern times has presided over a bigger reduction in crime. Yet, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done series after series of ‘Watchdog’ stories criticizing the department.”
The police department’s press release is after the jump.
CITY OF MILWAUKEE POLICE DEPARTMENT NEWS RELEASE
Edward A. Flynn, Chief of Police...
CHIEF FLYNN ENCOURAGES COMMUNITY TO COME TO “THE SOURCE” FOR MPD NEWS
Chief Flynn invites you to The Source at www.milwaukeepolicenews.com, the Milwaukee Police Department’s Website news source for the community and the media to learn the most up-to-date information on MPD.
The Source provides the whole story – the one that television, radio and newspapers don’t have space or time to provide their audiences. We’ll post updates on current investigations and show videos of crimes in progress where you can help us catch the suspect. We’ll give you the opportunity to check out our Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages where you can “follow” or “like” what we post there. We’ll correct the news stories that got it wrong and highlight the ones that got it right. The Source will share the good news stories on outstanding police work and heroic actions by officers not always covered in the mainstream news outlets.
We encourage you to check back to The Source at www.milwaukeepolicenews.com when you hear news reports that prompt you to seek more information. We’d like you to check us out first, because we will provide the news to you at the same time we’re providing it to the media. That way, the community and the news media receive it all at the same time – you don’t have to wait for 5 p.m. or 10 p.m. to get the story. And you get it all right there.
The Milwaukee Police Department envisions a Milwaukee where all can live safely and without fear, protected by a police department with the highest ethical and professional standards. Our mission is, in partnership with the community, to create a maintain neighborhoods capable of sustaining civic life. We commit to reducing levels of crime, fear and disorder through community-based, problem-oriented and data-driven policing.
Milwaukee Police Officers are working in the community every day. Wonder what they’re doing? Now you have The Source."
###
"Police Administration Building, 749 West State Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-0531 (414) 933-4444"
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel not interested in violence and death threats, March 2011:
3/21/11, "Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editor On WI Union Violence: 'You Reap What You Sow'," Breitbart/BigJournalism, John Nolte
"Other than some smaller, alt-weekly publications, the only newspaper in Milwaukee is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It's a daily publication that's read throughout the state and when I lived in Milwaukee it was breathtakingly biased, going so far as to move its editorials in favor of gun control to the front page on the same day important gun control votes were taking place. Obviously the paper has only gotten worse over the past two decades, and its editors even more belligerent and arrogant.
Posting at Charlie Sykes' WTMJ blog, George Mitchell tells the incredible story of his back and forth with Journal-Sentinel managing editor George Stanley:
"The Journal Sentinel’s selective coverage largely has been limited to brief reports of some individual incidents. The news judgment is unmistakable. Namely, these are isolated events. They don’t warrant the kind of saturation “civility” coverage that followed the recent shootings in Tuscon. (One can’t help wondering if things would be different if the Wisconsin perpetrators operated under the Tea Party banner.)
My own view is that Walker opponents are hurting their cause with this kind of activity. Without mentioning the Journal Sentinel or criticizing its coverage, I made that point in a March 18 e-mail that provided links to the Nolte and Althouse material. My distribution list included George Stanley, managing editor of the Journal Sentinel.
Stanley responded:
“Both sides are demonizing each other with deliberate, dishonest propaganda….You reap what you sow.”
I asked:“Are you suggesting that the behavior of Walker supporters is comparable to that of his opponents?”
He replied:"I don’t ‘suggest’ like you, George. I didn’t say a word about behavior or go to your links. I prefer honesty to bullshit.”"
You'll want to read the whole thing.In a just world there would be two huge scandals playing out here, the lesser of which is this editor's arrogant refusal to even look at evidence of a legitimate and important story. What kind of newspaper editor isn't interested in the scope and scale of the ongoing violence and intimidation taking place in the state he's charged with covering -- especially in light of the murders in Tuscon. That was a rhetorical question. And we all know why. A full, contextual examination of this will blow back on the pro-union side. Worse still, though, is that Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel managing editor George Stanley obviously believes that this campaign of violence and intimidation against Governor Walker, Senate Republicans, Tea Party leaders and local businesses is deserved.
How else are we to interpret the "reap what you sow" comment?
George Stanley obviously doesn't see death threats, vandalism and overall thuggery as a news story -- he sees it as justice.
ADDED: More from Mr. Stanley in an email response to a Wisconsin resident here:
"Mr. Mitchell, like some of his opponents, believes the end justifies the means and that dishonesty and exaggeration are tools to win political victory. I have little respect for that philosophy. That was what our argument was about.
Sincerely,
George Stanley"
How would George Stanley know this when he refused to look at the documented evidence? His own words...
I didn’t say a word about behavior or go to your links. I prefer honesty to bullshit.He prefers honesty to bull shit like I prefer Joy Behar to Pam Grier. "
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Ed. note: For the record, Gov. Walker made no changes to police and fire fighter collective bargaining agreements. These groups are hardly 'in the tank' for Walker in case a Journal Sentinel editor assumed this to be so.
- Of 314 fire and police unions in the state
- only four of them endorsed Walker. (Item near end of page on Limbaugh transcript, 2/18/11.)
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