Nothing To See Here. Move Along.

Still another neighborhood meeting has been convened – this one by Alder Marsha Rummel – to talk more about what happened on November 9^th on South Baldwin street on Madison’s near east side.  It’s been almost three months since local musician Paul Heenan was stumbling home, drunk, in the wee hours of the morning, and accidentally entered the wrong house.

It’s not like that hasn’t happened before in this city, known nationwide for its vibrant local music scene, and – the tendency of its young downtown residents to drink way too much.

But this time, something went wrong, and a veteran police officer shot Heenan dead, bam-bam-bam, three shots to center mass.  (At least, that's what I'm told happened.) The officer said Heenan got into a struggle with him after the homeowner reported a break-in, that Heenan went for his pistol, and Heenan got dead.

When sober, no one is so stupid as to try and grab a cop's gun.  Heenan wasn't sober.

Ironically, the veteran cop who shot Heenan was Officer Stephen Heimsness, a music-lover, guitar player, and avid supporter of the downtown music scene.

Immediately, the cops put a blue blanket of silence around the incident.  Didn’t answer questions from the media, circled the wagons, stonewalled the reporters, and a few agonizing days later, Chief Noble Wray gave a carefully-orchestrated “response” in the form of a news conference.  An investigation of the shooting by the Dane County DA’s office concluded that Heimsness followed the procedures of the Madison Police Department.

The thing is, it’s nearly three months later, and this incident won’t go away.  This sort of thing is deeply disturbing to a city like Madison, where we have one of the finest, well-trained, most professional, and – let’s face it – most tolerant police forces in the nation.  The rank and file of Madison cops consists of men and women with college degrees…..many of them holders of advanced degrees….more than a few with law degrees….and they’re not in any way prone to over-react and have never, not ever, not even in the troubled 60’s – been accused of being trigger-happy.

Show me another city which holds a public drunkfest every spring (the Mifflin Street Beer Blast) where the cops gladly pose for pictures with the revelers.

This is one of my favorite photos….taken in April 2005 at the Beer Blast.  Officer Lind is far left, our son Dru is chugging a beer, Officer Scheller is at the center, flanked by our daughter Mallory and her BFF Briana.  Dru’s best pal Chaise is kneeling in the front.

This city has also had the benefit of having one of the most progressive police chiefs in the world leading the ranks from 1972 to 1993, David Couper, whose treatises on urban policing are considered gospel by hundreds of police departments.  Couper, now a semi-retired Episcopal Priest (and U.S. Marine: no one who served in the Corps should be called “former” Marine), posted some thoughts on the Heenan/Heimsness incident on his blog a day or so ago.

The first point Chief Couper ponders is whether the police should be permitted to investigate a potential crime involving one of their own officers.  We all know the answer to that question is a resounding “NO”, and Wisconsin is one of the few states that still allows it.  Chief Couper also wonders whether the situation was really as dangerous as the official report made it out to be, given the number of back-up officers readily available downtown.

But perhaps the most important question Chief Couper raises is “will this be the new standard of conduct regarding how the Madison Police Department will deal with a situation like this in the future”?

This incident, and its discussion in the community, are not over.  Not by a long shot.

We know the cops have a very, very difficult job, and they have to make split-second life and death decisions.  It takes a special kind of person to do the job.  And it’s not easy to sleep under the blanket of protection our professional police officers provide, and then question the manner in which they provide it.

But this is Madison, and we question authority as part of our genetic disposition.

Too many questions remain about this incident.

Our Best Friends and Constant Companions

Anyone who has ever loved a dog...and has had to say a final farewell...will love this beautiful piece from my friend Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaff.  

Our two canine "children" in the photo above - Shadow, the older Collie, who looks like Lassie and turned 6 a few months ago, and our little girl, Sunny, who is 3 - are wonderful companions and guardians.  Both have very sweet temperament and love every person they've ever met.

Some day, "that day" will come.  It's part of our obligation as pet-owners.  It's never easy.  But as Sarah's touching post points out, our lives are richer for having had our canine friends, and saying good-bye is never easy.

Voter Fraud in Wisconsin (Pure Manure)

Finally, somebody has asked the hard questions about voter fraud to the right-wing lawmakers who continue to whine about all the fraud taking place in Wisconsin elections, and, predictably, the sponsors of such legislation can offer absolutely no evidence of any voter fraud anywhere in the state at any time.

I’ve beaten this mule before, more than once.  It’s a topic I keep thinking will finally die, but just as it disappears from the radar, it pops up again – and again.  Just this week an otherwise apparently sane person of my acquaintance said Barack Obama was re-elected only – ONLY – because of massive voter fraud.

The outfit that pinned the tail on the donkey of voter fraud was not a “journalistic” organization, but, a hard-core lefty outfit called “One Wisconsin Now”.  All its leader, Scot Ross, did, was what any “journalistic” organization might have done months ago: Ross simply went to four key legislators who’ve pushed the hardest for Voter ID in Wisconsin, and said “show me your evidence”.

Nothing.  Nada. Zip. Zero.

Not one piece of evidence – much less “proof” – was advanced by Senator Joe Leibham, Senator Alberta Darling, Senator Glenn Grothman (who actually admitted they have absolutely no evidence to back up the public allegations they’ve made about massive voter fraud in the state), and Representative Robin Vos, who didn’t even bother to respond to Ross.

At least the others did him the courtesy of saying “we got nuthin’.”

The Voter ID law the Republicans got passed last year was immediately slapped down as unconstitutional.  It threatened to do irreparable harm to the rights of 300,000 Wisconsin voters.  Now, the legislature doesn’t need to have evidence of anything to pass any damn law it sees fit.  The Voter ID law was a textbook example of a “solution in search of a problem”.

Yet all one need do to hear allegations of massive voter fraud in Wisconsin is to tune in Miss Vicky in the afternoon in Madison (when she’s not busy warning us that Barack Obama’s Secret Muslim Army is going to come to our homes at night, take all our guns, force us to marry gay people and have abortions, and other important topics), or Charlie in the morning in Milwaukee, or Jerry in the morning in Green Bay, yada yada yada. 

I know a bit about voter fraud and election fraud.  As President of my graduating class at Hortonville High School, I presided over the referendum to decide what the Senior Class Gift should be: a whirlpool for the athletic department, or a sign-board for the front of the high school.  The whirlpool won, with 108 votes.  There were 88 members of my graduating class.  It was fair to say that a few of my fellow Polar Bears stuffed the ballot box.

You’d think that an admission to the hard-core lefties from the lunatic fringe right that they have NO evidence of voter fraud would bring an end to the constant yammering about it.

Apparently, voter fraud is like the Loch Ness monster.  No one has ever actually seen it, but by God, it just MUST be there.

Everybody says so.

He's Baaaaaack.......

At a news conference at the state capitol Monday, my old pal and former longtime radio partner John “Sly” Sylvester told the crowd he had some bad news…….bad news, that is, for Scott Walker.  Sly will soon be back on the airwaves – and the internet – from WEKZ-FM 93.7 in Monroe.  The station, which is known right now for its oldies format, has a powerful signal (which you can see on the graphic above) and Sly will be taking over the afternoon shift from 3 to 6:30 weekdays, starting Monday February 4^th.

Sly won’t be talking between the records on WEKZ-FM, like he did 16 years ago when he dominated morning radio ratings on WIBA-FM, before he was kicked to the curb by MidWest Family Broadcasting in November, after 15 years in their stable.  He’ll be doing the same sort of thing he did on WTDY-AM: a talk show. Not a music show with talk, like he did years ago on WIBA-FM, but a full-bore talk show, only now, Sly will be able to antagonize people – and politicians – in Wisconsin and Illinois!

Typical of Sly’s pointed humor, at his Monday news conference, he sarcastically said “I’ll be doing an afternoon talk show.  There’s not an afternoon talk show in Madison right now, is there?” – another dig at ultra-right-wing radio’s reigning local queen, Vicki McKenna and her afternoon show on WIBA-AM.  Unlike Miss Vicki, who spouts the latest partly line from the likes of Karl Rove, Fox News, and the NRA, and, in the Rush Limbaugh mode, never allows a caller on the air who disagrees with her for more than a few seconds before screeching the caller down, Sly promises to continue his pattern of not only allowing, but encouraging people who disagree with him to call and be on the air with him.

A lot of people, I think, are going to “re-discover” Sly when he hits the airwaves on WEKZ-FM.  For one thing, it’s a much, much more powerful signal than the puny AM 1670 signal of WTDY, which has now changed call sign to WOZN-AM and has become “The Zone”, with programming from CBS SportsRadio. Years ago, when MidWest put 93.1 FM, “The Lake” on the air (another failed MidWest venture - which, several years ago, morphed into 93.1 jAMZ, playing hip-hop music), I was voice-tracking morning news on that station and voice-tracking another MidWest station (AM 1550, The Tux) and doing live news on two other MidWest stations, Q-106 and WTDY, and Sly was “voice-tracking” the afternoon show on The Lake.  Voice-tracking means he recorded his spoken breaks for The Lake when he got done with our live morning show on WTDY – but, it sounded like he was live and in The Lake’s studio in the afternoon.  MidWest gave The Lake a pretty good launch, and, in the early days, callers to the station would say “So, Sly is back on the air in Madison again – good to hear him!”  They had no idea that Sly had been doing the morning show on WTDY for several years, before The Lake was launched.  They thought that when Sly left WIBA-FM, he disappeared.  They had no idea he’d just crossed town and had gone to work on WTDY.  Suffice it to say the ratings on 1670AM were never a factor in the market.

News about the other 7 employees fired the same day as Sly is mixed.  Shawn Prebil is now doing some stuff for the Clear Channel cluster in Madison, including a weekend talk show on 92.1 The Mic - which, I’m told, never gave serious consideration to hiring Sly, despite a noisy grassroots campaign called “Give Sly the Mic” which was launched shortly after MidWest fired him.  Deana Wright, the talented  Madison-born-and-raised broadcaster who returned “home” a couple years ago after stints in some of the largest markets in the nation, is entertaining offers from the major markets again, and tells me there are some tempting local non-radio offers on her plate, as well.  Deana is continuing her gig voice-tracking an Urban AC radio show in the Atlanta market and is still doing some voice-over work.  Amy Barrilleaux, the former WTDY News Director, is maintaining her “news brand” and tells me she’s doing some freelancing for Isthmus (she has a cover story on domestic violence coming out in tomorrow’s edition) and in a few weeks will be in training for a hundred-mile bike ride to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  I was never acquainted with Crystal MacKenzie or Lindsay Adjavor or any of the others who were part of the mass firing, so I can’t tell you what they’re up to.

I wish them all well, and will be eager to hear what Sly has to say on his new afternoon show in a couple weeks.  The good folks in Monroe are soon to have a lot more than cheese to talk about!

No Good Deed.....

The business of radio broadcasting has become a largely unsustainable model; newspapers and news magazines struggle to find ways, in the digital age, to stay alive.  TV news operations – local, national, over-the-airwaves, and cable – have been steadily downsized for the past five years.  Local TV news operations in Wisconsin and a handful of other states which had highly contested political races in the past election cycle (Tammy vs. Tommy, etc.) got a huge infusion of cash that may have forestalled further downsizing by a year or two.

At a time when we need more investigative journalism than ever before to keep track of the vast sums of anonymous cash that fuel increasingly negative and insulting political ad campaigns, it’s disappearing. In large part, investigative journalism has been supplanted by bloggers - some more well-intentioned than others, others blatantly partisan - and well-financed sources of deliberate disinformation.

That’s why it’s so disappointing that the Midwest's largest funder of independent, non-partisan examination of politics and political spending, the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, has abruptly pulled the plug on its funding for the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign after 16 years of continued support.

This is a huge blow to the budget of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, one that’s going to be very challenging to the continued operations of our state’s premier organization, in its mission of delivering unbiased political analysis and political fundraising accountability.  That’s why this blind-side from the Joyce Foundation sucks so much.  Essentially every news organization in the state has relied on the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to provide untainted information.  Now, when we need this kind of information the most, with dwindling resources in every newsroom in the state, its existence is threatened.

As the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Mike McCabe, has said, “Somebody needs to follow the money in Wisconsin politics.  Somebody needs to show how all that money contaminates public policymaking. Somebody needs to expose corruption, blow the whistle on wrongdoing, and fight to keep government as clean, open, and honest as possible.”

Increasingly, that job has been done by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, filling in the huge staffing gaps that exist in newsrooms in our state.  Hence, the title of this post, “No Good Deed” – and, its modern suffix, “goes unpunished”.

I encourage you to join my wife and me in donating whatever you can to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.  It’s as easy as logging onto their website.

I’ve never understood why so many people on the right think organizations like the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union, to name only two, are “left-leaning” organizations.  They’re not.  They exist to help protect the constitutional rights of every American, and to fulfill the Jeffersonian demand for a well-informed citizenry.  Every citizen, regardless of political bent, should support organizations like these.

I have never, since I started this blog in 2009, asked my readers to contribute to anything.

I’m asking now.

It’s that important.

Remembering Marsh Shapiro

Of all the things I will remember about Marsh Shapiro, my fondest memory will be of the great kindness Marsh showed to our kids – kids who are now young adults, and like their parents, have spent many hours in Marsh’s company at his famous Madison establishment, the Nitty Gritty.

Marsh passed away this morning after a long fight with brain cancer.  I first met Marshall Shapiro at a Boys State Basketball Tournament in the 70’s.  He was already well-known to the broadcasters in the state not only for his “Marshall the Marshall” kids TV show on Channel 27 in Madison from 1964 to ‘68, but for his enthusiastic sports reporting following his career in children’s TV.  Marsh got his foot in the door in TV the old fashioned way.  His first job at Channel 27 was sweeping floors.

My friend George Hesselberg has written a fine obituary for Marsh for the State Journal.

In 1988, when I moved back to Madison from Los Angeles and was doing a morning show with the smart and pretty lady who would become my wife, one of my most fun duties was doing live radio commercials for Marsh’s famous restaurant, the Nitty Gritty.   He named the restaurant after the 1963 Shirley Ellis hit song. 

Here’s a shot of the famous “birthday bar” at the corner of Frances and Johnson Street, just a few blocks from the Kohl Center.  Marsh insisted that Toni and I dine at his fine establishment at least once a month  (he and his wife Susan insisted we dine on his tab) to make sure I had a good sense of what was going on at “Madison’s Official Birthday Bar” for the radio commercials.  We liked the place so much that we often went there and dined on our own tab – and both our kids have a collection of Nitty Gritty birthday mugs from having celebrated many birthdays at the Nitty Gritty.  You got your name in lights, they rang the birthday bell for you, sang the birthday song for you, and gave you a souvenir mug for celebrating your birthday at the Nitty Gritty.

As our kids became young adults, and were accepted as students at UW-Madison, they both got what I called “The Tim Morrissey Tour of Campus” a few days before they moved into the dorms.  They’d both had official orientation through the UW-Madison’s SOAR program (Student Orientation, Advising, and Registration), but I insisted they get MY tour of campus, from MY perspective, which centered on the campus in the 60’s, and my narrative about what the war protests were like, my pointing out of what I considered the historical places – like where the teargas flowed during the Dow Chemical riots, the place where young Bob Fassnacht died when Sterling Hall was blown up, and the role the UW protests had in bringing the Viet Nam war to an end.  Our son Dru got my orientation in 2001 before his freshman year, and then Mallory in 2003.

And the tour always included lunch at the Nitty Gritty.

I’d call Marsh and tell him we were coming in for the “orientation tour” lunch, and after we polished off our Gritty Burger Baskets, Marsh would join us at the table.  He gave Dru and two years later Mal a spirited account of what it was like to be in Madison in the mid-to-late 60’s.  He’d point to a booth in the corner of the restaurant and say “that booth is where the Armstrong brothers, David Fine, and Leo Burt planned the Sterling Hall bombing in August of 1970”.  He’d point to the bandstand and say “we had live music every night of the week here, and that stage has seen the likes of Cheap Trick,  Bonny Raitt, Muddy Waters, the Luther Allison Blues Band, and a lot of other bands you’ve never heard of, but went on to become very famous back in your parent’s day. “  He explained how the Nitty Gritty had become sort of a haven for the leaders of the protest movement and the counter-culture in Madison.  He’d look Dru (and later Mallory) in the eye and say “I know Tim has told you to read Tom Bates’ book called ‘Rads’ and I hope you have, because it’s a great account of those days here.  And you’d better have watched 'The War at Home', too!” 

Marsh was so full of life and enthusiasm when he gave those personal orientation talks to the kids – his performance was unforgettable.  And when Toni and I would stop in for lunch during the years the kids were students at the UW, Marsh would always join us and give us a report: “Dru was in the other night with a bunch of his pals – he took them to that picture on the wall and showed it to them”. Marsh covered several of the walls of his restaurant with black and white 8x10 photos of the famous coaches, athletes, entertainers, and luminaries who had dined there, and was kind enough to put up a picture of Toni and me with the kids.  Or we’d hear “Mallory was in the other night with a bunch of her gal-pals from the dorm”.  Marsh was the ultimate restaurateur: he treated you like family.

When Pat Richter retired as Athletic Director of the UW in April of 2004, his “unofficial” retirement party was upstairs at the Nitty Gritty – and Marsh was kind enough to invite Toni and me to be a part of that wonderful gathering.

Many things will be said about Marsh, his kids TV days, his sports reporting days, his role as restaurateur to the community, his love of the city and his many contributions to it through the Alcohol License Review Committee, his generosity with the American Family Children’s Hospital, but I’ll remember Marsh best for those wonderful “orientation” talks he gave our kids.

Rest in peace, Marsh.

Media Interviewing Traumatized Children: WRONG

There seems to be a consensus of professional news writers and editors that the coverage of the tragic mass murder in Connecticut Friday morning generated more false and misleading initial reports than any other major national news event in memory.  I learned a long time ago, as a student at the Media University of Learning the Hard Way, that the first reports of any spot news story are almost always wrong, because initial reports often come from the most unreliable of all sources: eyewitnesses.

Ask any trial lawyer how reliable the testimony of eyewitnesses is, and how often, under questioning, their story falls apart.

Part of the problem with the Connecticut mass murder coverage is that almost every national news organization has abandoned the journalistic principle of attribution, and anchors and reporters state assertions as though they were fact-checked truth. Consider these statements:  His mother was a teacher at the school and he went to her classroom first and killed everyone there.  He was buzzed into the building by a security guard. Not only did those statements and many others reported as “fact” prove false, let’s remember that for several hours at the beginning of the slaughter, the media didn’t even get the shooter’s name right.  They parroted what police said, and police got it wrong.  The days of having a second source or confirming information are apparently long gone.  But the media didn't "attribute" the source of their information on the name, so - that's a mistake on their part just as much as it is on the cops.

As a broadcast news anchor for more than three decades, I know how this works, and I understand the pressure to provide “content” for the ongoing coverage.  You interview a “source” whom you believe to be credible, and report their assertions as fact – when often, their assertions are completely false.  It’s a true dilemma: you’re faced with two options (report it, or don’t) and neither one is practically acceptable.  If you don’t report it, someone else will “beat you to it”.  If you do report it and it turns out to be false – your tough luck.

The mistakes and errors in “fact” I can understand, but what I can’t condone is the exploitive interviews with traumatized children, moments after they’ve experienced a horrific tragedy, which their minds are often not capable of processing.  The Poynter Institute in Florida, journalism’s standard-keeper, discourages interviewing children as was done Friday, saying “What is the journalistic purpose in interviewing a juvenile?”  Child Psychologist Dana Gaffney, who worked with the survivors of the Columbine massacre in 1999, says “Children who are witnesses to violent events or tragic occurrences are victims in their own right.  They may not be the direct recipients, but as witnesses they are profoundly affected”.  She has advised reporters ever since Columbine not to interview ANY child or young person who has witnessed injury or death.

Police have no choice but to interview traumatized children as they gather evidence to try and solve a crime or enhance immediate public safety, but they are rigorously trained in the appropriate techniques to use with child witnesses, with a goal of protecting the children, who are likely in shock, from further stress and trauma.  Reporters interviewing traumatized children are creating more drama and, truth to be told, simply filling airtime.

In the sense of news reporting, children like the ones interviewed on live TV Friday provide no useful information, and tell us nothing about what it was like to be inside the classroom when bullets were flying that any adult couldn’t already guess.  Rescuers at Sandy Hook School wisely told the children to close their eyes, so they wouldn’t see and remember the bloodshed around them.  Is there any sentient adult with an IQ above room temperature who can’t figure out how it “feels” to be in the middle of a shooting?

Children are NOT small adults.  Even if their parents “gave permission” for the interviews, the parents are often traumatized and making poor decisions.  When CNN started to get huge pushback from adults who barraged CNN with social media messages late Friday afternoon, imploring them to STOP running interviews with the children, Wolf Blitzer (at 4:28 PM) announced that CNN’s reporters always ask permission from parents before interviewing children – as if that makes it all OK.  One social media post titled "Tell CNN to Stop Interviewing Children" got 56,000 "likes" in the first hour it was up.

There is a huge body of legitimate, peer-reviewed academic research about how children process traumatic events, research that was done following the 9-11 attacks.  Researchers learned that children process television coverage of tragedy and disaster far differently than adults.   They learned that children don’t understand the concept of video replay, and every time they see the towers fall, they think it’s happening all over again.  As I’ve maintained for years, television’s default position is “EXCESS” – so they play videotape of the towers falling over and over and over again.  And researchers learned that when children see disaster and trauma on TV, they think it’s happening in their own neighborhood – because the TV is in their home.  They don’t have the ability to adequately process the information like adults do.

That’s why parents have been advised by child psychologists for years to keep their youngsters away from TV coverage of disasters and traumas.  Children have a completely different view of such things, and can readily be traumatized over and again by watching repeated broadcasts of disaster.

One more rant: the young man who murdered all the children and teachers is not “evil”.  He’s mentally ill.  He didn’t do it because we’ve “kicked God out of the schools”.  He did it because he is mentally ill and we can’t “make sense of it” because his mind hasn’t been making sense for quite some time.  We need to examine not only our gun laws – the most lax in the world – but our mental health system.  That’s as much a part of the debate about ending these tragedies as keeping 30-round clips (or, as in the case of the Colorado theatre killer, HUNDRED-ROUND CLIPS) out of the hands of everyone except soldiers.