Shoddy Journalism

by capper

This morning's paper had an article about Walker trying to push his plan to move the Behavioral Health Division from the county grounds in Wauwatosa to the old St. Michael's Hospital. (By the way, it's still a very bad idea, on many, many levels.)

Steve Schultze wrote the article, and it is pretty obvious that he wrote it from press releases from Walker's office, with only one or two phone calls. He misses a lot of different angles to this story. But perhaps the most offensive part of the article (outside of Walker's plan itself) is the last paragraph (emphasis mine):

The report says the shift to St. Michael would provide an opportunity for "culture change" throughout the county's Behavioral Health Division, whose employees staff the mental health complex. High absenteeism, high overtime costs and difficulty in recruiting workers have plagued the division in recent years. In addition, employees have publicly raised concerns about safety at the complex after several instances of patient assaults on staff and other patients.

A "culture change"? And did he bother wondering why there was high absenteeism, high overtime, and problems with recruitment? Perhaps he should have referred himself to an article that he wrote himself last year, which discussed that due to the low staffing cause by Walker's ineptitude, there was an increase of assaults on staff by 50%. The citizens of Milwaukee County had their chance for a culture change on April 1st. Now it's too late. This move, from what I hear, will only make things worse, as far as staffing goes.

But Schultze didn't bother to check, and apparently went with whatever the press release said. This doesn't surprise me too much though. It's not the first time I've wondered about his reporting.

What's The Story Of These Two Stories? Part III

I've already written about the problems that have been going on at the Milwaukee County House of Correction, the Community Correctional Center, and the reporting of these stories. Now, it goes from bad to worse.

In another article by Steve Schultze, we find that Corrections Manager Jones-Grams, successfully beat the charges against her and will be reinstated to her position. The charges against her, in a scapegoat maneuver by Scott Walker, Tosa Ranger, was that she "had allowed 'work-release inmates to freely come and go.'"

The review board, which is hand-picked and appointed by Walker, couldn't help but find that these charges could not be proven. Why? Well, the article gives three good reasons:

One thing the case has made clear: Inmates at the work-release center are not locked in. There are no cells and no locks on the dorm-like rooms inmates share at the center, a converted hospital at 1004 N. 10th St. Exit doors leading from each floor of the five-story building also are unlocked, because of fire regulations.

and

Testimony in the Jones-Grams case and a state audit this year also revealed that video security cameras at the center weren't recording anything and that supplies for printing inmate photos often were not available. That meant that inmate cards used to verify the identity of inmates often lacked photos.

and

Testimony from current and former county correction officials in the Jones-Grams case revealed that the center has had an average of three escapes a week since the late 1990s. Inmates gone more than 24 hours are written up as having escaped, with a referral made for an arrest warrant.

So, we find that despite a long history of problems of inmates escaping from the CCC, we have Walker cutting the funding so that it is even easier for inmates to take off and be on the loose to commit more crimes. He also blames officers for not doing their jobs, when he won't allow them the equipment or supplies that they would need to do those jobs. To add to this mess, there is all the overtime that has to be paid for the coverage needed to take the place of these officers while they are waiting for their hearings and for their jobs back, the cost of the hearings, and all the other administrative expenses for Walker's red herring hearings.

How exactly does this fit into Walker's "Safe. Affordable. Pride." campaign slogan? We won't know, based on the article:

Nola Cross, Jones-Grams' lawyer, said Jones-Grams was a political scapegoat.

Walker declined to comment.

And speaking of the article, it would have been nice if Mr. Schultze had told us why Ms. Jones-Grams, who was fired last, got her hearing right away, while the three front line officers have to wait another six months until they get their hearings.

What's The Story Of These Two Stories? Part I

by capper

In today's MSJ, there are two articles, both written by Steve Schultze, and both dealing with the Milwaukee County House of Correction (HOC) and the Community Correctional Center (CCC) where they house the work release inmates. Both are in the main news section. One article is titled " Lights out for inmates is 3:30". This one was located on the front page and continued on the inside, on page 18. The second article is also on page 18. This article is titled "Clarke rips release plan after arrest".

Both articles caught my eye, due to the fact that I used to work there. I have also been following the story of the four corrections officers who were targeted by Scott Walker for termination. As I read both articles, I found that there were two areas of interest. One was the implications of the story, which I will cover in my next post. The other area was some of the inconsistencies in the two stories.

The main story was about how inmates at HOC and CCC are allowed to stay up until 3:30 a.m. on weekends and holidays, which apparently is unique to the state. All other correctional facilities have lights out at 10 p.m. The part I want to point out is when Mr. Schultze speaks to he superintendent of the HOC and CCC, Ron Malone:

Ron Malone, superintendent of the House of Correction and the work-release center at 1004 N. 10th St., declined to comment, saying he wasn't familiar with inmate hours.

While in the second article, which is about another escaped inmate from CCC, we see this:

Ron Malone, superintendent of the work-release center, couldn't be reached.

Did he speak to Malone, or didn't he? Or did he speak to Malone on one occasion and tried to make contact again? If this is the case, why wasn't that point clarified?

Also in the body of the second article, we have another seeming contradiction. First, Mr. Schultze writes:

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. criticized the county’s work-release program after deputies arrested a man Tuesday night who had left the downtown Community Correctional Center without authorization. Clarke said 41-year-old Kenneth D. Glenn should have been excluded from the work-release program based on his history of six felony convictions.

Note the verbs criticized and said. As Jay would teach us, those are action verbs, which would indicated that Clarke was present during these actions, or at least in direct contact with the reporter. But the last sentence of the same article reads:

Clarke was not available for comment Wednesday, said spokeswoman Kim Brooks.

Now, I realize Clarke probably did the original criticism through a press release. But I can't but think that it would make the article seem less self-contradictory if this was mentioned. But since it wasn't, and being right next to the first article, it would make it seem like sloppy journalism, or sloppy editing.

By no means should this critique be construed as maligning Mr. Schultze's personal or journalistic integrity, but I must point out that the inconsistencies between the two stories and in the same story, makes it more suspect to skepticism. I recognize that there may be some logical rationale on why these articles appear this way, but without knowing that rationale, one can only wonder, and be wary.

Another odd part to this whole thing is that when I went to write this post, I had to dig around in the archives to find the second story, even though it was just published today.