Character, cops, and journalists without any

Here in the mistake on the lake, in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, we are blessed to have a columnist named Regina Brett. Her middle name should be NASCAR as she only turns left. I have mentioned her before on this site because she does write some good columns once in a while, usually about breast cancer, which is a topic of interest to her. When she writes anything else, however, she is a waste of time.

She wrote this on 16 July -- http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/st ... thispage=3

Suffice to say her "serial killer" line caused a lot of local outrage towards her and her paper. As well as it should; if you are serving a major city and you write crap that is on the level of a left wing underground college newspaper, you should be called out for having no standards.

What is interesting is that this cop called her, and gave this interview on 25 Jul -- http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/st ... xml&coll=2

The comparison between the two is like looking at some whiny college punk in the body of a middle aged reporter and someone who knows in his very bones what it is like to protect and serve. Officer Simone has more integrity and character in his little finger than she has had in her entire journalistic career. I think it is hilarious that a man who knows that he works hard to protect and serve in a dangerous environment knows he has nothing to fear from a liberal nitwit rolling around in the mud and trying to get other people dirty.

 

Steve I couldn't agree more. I 'get' she thought that his shooting statistics were higher than she thought they should be or maybe they are no matter how you look at it but you don't know without the knowledge of what happened in each case. She made the mistake of not getting his comments before releasing her opinion piece about what cops should be like, giving the impression he wasn't any of those things. I guess she made up for it 2nd piece but it sounds like only after some possible pressure.

This is a shining example of what is wrong with the media these days, they don't all do things like this, but enough do to taint the whole.

 

I could go on and on about this but I will simply say this in regard to Ms. Brett . . .. talk about arrogance

 

What is more impressive is the fact that Officer Simone responded to this nonsense. What Ms. Brett does is very easy -- she sits on the sidelines, passes judgement of others, and does very little to get her hands dirty in areas of policy where the rubber meets the road. She has free run of the park to write about whatever she sees fit in any manner she sees fit. As well as it should be.

However, I think of Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech --

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

She can point out the stumbles of others all she wants; it is like so much white noise most of the time, until she equates cops and serial killers. That is slap out of order.

Don, if she actually rides w/ Officer Simone for a day and writes about it, then I will post that link as well. This is not a woman of character or substance; frankly, I am doubtful that will happen.

 

What a great quote from Teddy. It is so true. It has always been that way and I suspect always will. It particularly hits home with today's media environment with respect to government. We still need critics but again, this lapse of professionalism on her part is too prevalent.

I always go back to motivation. Most of the time it is usually something emotional in a person, like an 'axe to grind' that sends them off on critique like this, or to be critical of a group in general, because it represents something they don't like about their world. They mold their facts and opinions around what 'charges' them emotionally about something. Many times I find out here in the land of 'fruits and nuts' it is a simple matter of wanting to 'fit in' and not be unpopular.

Nice post Steve.

 

I just did a follow-up, it's over three weeks later and Ms. Brett has not written a column yet on her day with Officer Simone, leading me to assume she has not done so. That is plenty of time to work in a 2-3 hour patrol with a Cleveland police officer -- she simply does not have the integrity to do what she said she would.

I'm not going to follow up on her again, as she is simply not worthy of my time. What a disgrace to her profession.

 

Holy Crap! I looked that up {it was easy!} and I bookmarked it.

TR at Sorbonne, 1910

THEN I read parts of the REST of the speech..
WOW!

It is a CLASSIC and should be taught in High Schools everywhere. Not just taught but discussed.
Of course it probably is and has been taught. But the bad part is: if I was taught that, I forgot about it.

 

Fog, I had a Battalion Commander at Ft. Lewis who was very fond of the Man in the Arena speech and quoted it often. He was a true stud, Lt. Col. Peter Champagne from Boston MA, and hesure talked like he was from New England. If I heard about it in high school or college I forgot all about it.

That speech will be on the wall in my classroom one day, that and Colin Powell's 13 tenets of leadership, some of which are in my signature.

 

Hatter quoting Reagan?!!

I am reading Reagan: A Life in Letters right now. I was very fond of Reagan as a President (sorry Hatter) and am even more so after reading much of this collection. He was a generous, caring and pragmatic man. He was also wrote a 'boat-load' of personal correspondence, I mean A LOT.

 

Steve, I dont know if you saw this in the paper today; Regina Brett finally did a beat with officer Simone and wrote about it . In the end it is good because it clearly shows that Cleveland should thank its lucky stars to have a man like him patroling the streets. I still would have liked to have have seen an apology or an expression of regret for the "serial Killer" reference.[/url]

 

Good article Mo in terms of what he goes through on shift by shift basis. Personally, I think the guy is awesome. She clearly avoided dealing with her original article. I suppose it was her way of making amends without actually saying it.

 

Thanks for the heads-up Mo.

I expected to see an apology in this article. Actually, I would have expected to see an apology from someone that had character and integrity to clean up the mess she made no matter how embarrassing it may have been to her. Which is to say I was expecting a journalist with the extremely low professionalism standards of Ms Brett to do nothing of the sort. Sorry Ma'am, this column was not good enough. When you screw up like you did, an apology is in order. A ride along does not do the entire job. A journalist with a polished degree of professionalism would have done that already. I am not surprised Ms. Brett failed to do so. She is a poor representative of her field of endeavor.

 

Actually no -- it is usually never too late for an apology. We all screw up in this world and if no one dies, and sometimes even then, we are forgiving enough as a society to let bygones be bygones and move on. If hypothetically the CEO of Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual goes before the court on his sentencing day and indicates he is sorry for the mess he's caused and the pain he's caused millions of investors, he certainly would not get as heavy a sentence as he otherwise would. If he says, I would have done some things differently, or I was negligent performing my duties, or some similar line, that isn't the same thing as an apology. That just ain't good enough. Neither is what Ms Brett wrote.

Integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is watching.

 

Don, here's the thing. If she found the stones (so to speak) to say I screwed up and I apologize, I'd still say good for her. I will not read her to see if she will do that, as I have already wasted too much time on her, and I am not holding my breath.

 

Regina Brett is interviewing officer Silmone right now on NPR's Sound of Ideas. She is devoting an entire show to him - completely different from her usual format on the show. It always has a panel of guests. I only heard the very beginning

I'm sure Officer Simone will be vindicated by this from what I heard.