On Mayor Willie Herenton (The Press)

(Photo: MDN) Originally posted 6/30; Click the conversation for more.

UPDATE (7/11): The Tri-State Defender has posed the question: So, who monitors those who monitor the system of justice?

It intends to find out. An excerpt:

This week, the Tri-State Defender invited Laurenzi to address these concerns by providing information that would help this community hold an informed discussion of these issues. We asked him to provide the racial makeup of his attorney workforce; the racial makeup of the leadership team that helps makes prosecutorial decisions; and to disclose recent or current complaints of racial or gender discrimination.

The Defender also asked the office to share with its readers the safeguards or systems in place to ensure that citizens receive fair treatment.

After talking with Laurenzi, spokeswoman Leigh Anne Jordon said Laurenzi indicated that some of the information requested may be part of the public record, some may not. She said the newspaper would need to file a request with Washington officials under the Freedom of Information Act.

Executive Editor Karanja A. Ajanaku said the newspaper started that process this week.

“We want Memphis to have an informed conversation about the African American community’s concerns regarding the administration of justice, here and across the nation,” he said. “We really can’t have a useful dialogue unless the entire Memphis community is given access to all the facts.”

To be sure, this comes after Mayor Herenton's public admonishment of the Defender for failing to counteract the "majority" media's alleged bias on African Americans. Herenton took the Defender to task a couple of weeks ago during a free-ranging discussion with local media.

To me, this is simply coincidental because, as the Defender points out, there is a real question of prosecutorial bias in terms of race, gender and political affiliation.

Just because Herenton simply expressed the same view, it doesn't make the Defender his mouthpiece.


UPDATE (7/10): At some point, The Memphis News had to get somewhat current. This week, Bill Dries used Herenton's presser to explore how the feds develop corruption cases.

An excerpt:

Credible tips, DiScenza said, often come as a result of publicity from other corruption cases.

“You have to start off slow,” he said. “You have to have a couple of small successful prosecutions before you really get into a situation where you have a larger successful prosecution.”

On the road to Tennessee Waltz, he said the smaller cases were the separate embezzlement cases in 2003 of Tom Jones, a top aide to former Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout, and Jerry McMichael, chief financial officer of the local Airport Authority.

“They also ginned up the interest of the public in making sure that public officials that served them were not nickel-and-diming them to death,” DiScenza told those at the seminar. “Both of these cases resulted in prison terms, which, believe it or not, up until that time we had not had much luck in getting.”

The tips rolled in after those cases, including some that pointed to phony consulting
contracts in the Juvenile Court Clerk’s office after Shep Wilbun had won appointment by his fellow county commissioners to the vacant office.

“It was right during an election cycle in which Mr. Wilbun was subject to re-election,” DiScenza said. “We found some contracts for consultants. When you’re in my business and you hear the word ‘consultant,’ you might as well say ‘corrupt individual.’ We found consultants that didn’t seem to have any work product for the $60,000 to $70,000 they were sucking out of the Juvenile Court Clerk’s office.”

(Photo: Flyer) Originally posted 6/30; Click the conversation for more.

UPDATED (7/02): According to Jackson Baker, a good time was had by all at City Hall last Thursday but it was still "a bull session -- in more senses of the term than one." (Smart City.)

Fox13: After two losses, are the feds gunshy?

ORIGINAL POST (6/30): As I watched the raw video of Mayor Herenton's dialogue with the press, my mind began to drift.

It was no longer June; it was April. The venue was no longer the Hall of Mayors; it was the National Press Club.

The man at the microphone--who evoked within me a chorus of "amens" and "you betta preach"--was not Mayor Herenton before a seated audience of journalists of whom he was critical; it was Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

At that moment, well before Herenton too shimmied ever so briefly, I knew--not much good would come of that dialogue.

Not much at all. I'll explain.

The banter can be well-intended, insightful, relaxed, non-threatening, declarative, definitive, open, frank, jovial and more but the press is not likely to give a polarizing figure the benefit of the doubt or really explore the significant aspects of his argument, especially when he is critical of them--or better yet, especially when he speaks the truth about them.

Notice the coverage.

Most of it dealt with the surface: Herenton's defense of Joseph Lee; Herenton's feelings that the feds are targeting him; the resignation that wasn't a resignation; and his thoughts about the school system. They focused on his remarks as compared to the FBI's inquiries and his own contradictions.

None of the reports really addressed his points about the media, though Fox13 wondered if Herenton would be happy if he called a press conference and no one showed up.

Interesting but it avoids--or better yet, doesn't even acknowledge--Herenton's valid beef that the media, especially the Commercial Appeal, seems more agenda-driven than fair. The CA totally ignored that.

And that's why the presser won't amount to much at all.

There will be little newsroom introspection because the media--not necessarily the reporters but the editors and other decision makers--don't trust or like Herenton enough to consider his criticism.

Indeed, the coverage of the presser leans toward the belief that Herenton used last Thursday to set the stage in case the feds should happen to indict him on anything. And if that happens, it is extremely unlikely that the media will convey the sense that an indictment doesn't mean guilt. (See Edmund Ford Sr. and Lee.)

Like him or not, the mayor raised some important issues, including minority and women contracting.

It is a slam against African-American or women-owned businesses that people might automatically assume that they had some inside track because of their minority status or they received business that they are not qualified to perform. That is degrading.

To that end, it is long overdue to do an indepth examination of minority and women participation in city or county contracts.

As Herenton noted, local government views itself as the primary cultivator of such businesses because of the belief that they might not grow otherwise.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: Should the Tri-State Defender exist to merely counterbalance the Commercial Appeal? No.

The Defender has a far more important role than to respond to whatever the CA reports because there is so much about the African American community--and other racial/ethnic groups--that is not being reported at all.

*CA: Testing patience.
*EyeNews: Joe Saino. (WREG.)
*CA: Otis Sanford.
*CA: Peck on positives.