“Gow, We had an independent ethics specialist look at this. There is nothing here to indicate a double standard, as evidenced by the fact that not one of the reputable news organizations that you sent this to ever responded. We did here from one local blogger who has an ax to grind.
Best,
Kevin”
All three of my loyal readers may find that paragraph amusing. It’s from Polk County’s top media executive, Kevin Drake, publisher of The Ledger.
I thought I would share it for a chuckle. If you know the context, it’s pretty funny.
If not, you can refer to this piece from last week.
In that post, I wrote about a very minor instance of special investigative treatment that Ledger Executive Editor Lenore Devore asked for and received from a Lakeland police official back in 2013. It would not merit a mention except for the fact that Devore pushed a story about very similar public figure behavior a couple weeks back. She had The Ledger report that City Commissioner Phillip Walker called Police Chief Larry Giddens directly after a minor car crash and asked for assistance. The implication, I think, was that Walker was asking for special treatment from Giddens, who just referred Walker to the normal channels.
I had two points in mind in writing about this apparent double-standard:
1) A newspaper editor like Devore, who is a public figure, shouldn’t scrutinize the behavior of a public official and then ignore her own behavior when she does exactly the same thing — and actually receives special treatment. And her boss, the publisher, shouldn’t let her.
2) A little bit of inference about LPD leaks and story priorities makes it pretty clear that Devore has something of a personal axe to grind against LPD Chief Giddens, with no real obvious reason. It’s perplexing at a time when LPD seems to be making strides both in public relationships and in diminished community violence. It’s a rather petty and pointless stance for a newspaper editor to have.
I learned about Devore-gate from a blanket email that former mayor Gow Fields to a number of I-4 Corridor media types. These included mostly TV stations, which would not touch this silly little story with a 10-foot camera poll because it requires some explaining. Local TV don’t do explaining.
Fields also copied Ledger publisher Kevin Drake on his email. Drake is nominally Devore’s boss. Fields said he was passing the police report on from an anonymous source, whose identity he did not know.
I recently asked Fields if he had received any response from The Ledger about his email. Indeed he had. He forwarded the emails to me.
Here is Drake’s first statement to Fields:
“Hi Gow,
We have looked into this matter and have determined that the facts and circumstances are not the same. These are two completely different incidents. We do not view this as newsworthy.
Thank you,
Kevin”
After Fields wrote back that he found this response dismissive, Drake responded again, with the words I quoted above about the “independent ethics specialist” and “the reputable news organizations” and “local blogger with an ax to grind.”
So who is this mysterious ethics expert? What did he or she conclude separated the two events in his or her ethical mind. I’m quite curious. And I have other questions.
Does the Hedge Fund that owns The Ledgerhave an ethicist on staff? Does the ethicist ever consult on the ethics of hedge funding? In a STEM world, should we consider the ethicist career path unreliable?
I rather fancy myself “an independent ethics specialist.” Can Kevin tell me why I am not and mystery Ethics Man is? I doubt it. But I’m always willing to listen to sounds of grinding axes.