This is exactly why, a few days ago, I wrote this, Ive been denouncing the use of anonymous source here from the start. It seems wrong to me to use an anonymous source to trash another person without any other verification. People should know whos accusing them. Its even worse for JS to do it - at least Taylor actually talked to the person and knows who he is. JS is just reporting that Taylor talked to the person and knows who he is. It gives readers no way to assess this persons claims, really. Learning today that the source was former cop Michael Lutz- well, that was sort of a jaw dropper. For Taylor to call him a former prosecutor in Chisholms office was somewhat misleading. To report his claims (breathlessly in some corners...um talk radio) without his name did not allow readers to properly assess his claims, either, and frankly theyre a lot less credible considering. I would add this, however - the JS bringing up the past high-profile shooting Lutz was involved in (at least in the way they did) is also somewhat misleading because they didnt report the other context - that being that a former Journal Sentinel reporter (Reid Epstein) did Lutz wrong by falsely reporting that he had shot an unarmed man (the supposed eyewitness in that case, Diane Wilson, was later charged with a crime for lying about the shooting). I know, because I was in the newsroom at the time. Ive never been more angry about my name being on any story. I had contributed a few passages about a broken police database to track police shootings that ended up at the bottom of that piece. Epstein went to the scene, and when I left the newsroom he was sitting at a computer writing the top of that story including the ultimately extremely unfair news lead, which I saw the next day...Without providing those details, the story sort of sets it up to use the shooting in a way that makes Lutz seem less credible, and Lutz didnt do anything wrong in that shooting, according to all who reviewed it.... in fact the media really did him wrong in how the story was reported at the onset. Now you see why my mouth dropped to learn Lutz was the source! He was part of an aggressive team of cops who worked for a conservative captain (who later wrote a blog). Some of their targets were gang members known as the Murda Mobb. The captain was later unfairly excoriated in the media for using the word thugs to describe said Murda Mobb gangbangers. Yep, context people. Lutz being the source is a jawdropper. Finally, I wonder if the JS will as aggressively attempt as they did here to out the anonymous people or person who leaked stories on John Doe 1 that in some cases implicated people in wrongdoing (named in the media) who never even ended up being charged. What were those anonymous peoples motivations, backgrounds, agendas? Oh, yeah, we will never know in those cases because it was Bice who was reporting using them. Anonymous sources have their place in journalism (Watergate), but they should be used with enormous caution, their claims should be independently verified if possible, I think its wrong to use them without verification to trash other peoples reputations, and readers should be given some notion of potential agendas. This is a CASE STUDY of why. Frankly, no one in the Milwaukee media market uses anonymous sources as regularly as Dan Bice. I also find it disingenuous how Bice frames the story as an excoriation of right-wing talk radio (which did too breathlessly go with this tale) without noting his own newspaper ran a huge breathless tale of its own on the same claims too. Do we know for sure that Chisholm did not say these things? No. But the claims are a lot less credible coming from a controversial Milwaukee cop who allegedly threatened to kill him. Period. (here is the story on eyewitness Wilson being charged: https://groups.google/forum/#!topic/alt.law-enforcement/o8ocpp7k52Y). ) jsonline/watchdog/noquarter/source-who-accused-chisholm-of-vendetta-has-troubled-past-b99350187z1-274905441.html
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 00:42:47 +0000
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