Louisiana Voice

Bloggers generally are written off by the so-called mainstream media and to tell the truth, it’s somewhat understandable that we are not always taken seriously. We often sprinkle personal opinions throughout our posts, a practice that is strictly taboo for the purists in the honorable field of journalism.

I’m keenly aware of the difference. I hold a degree in journalism and I’ve worked as a reporter and editor for several distinguished newspapers in Louisiana over my 40-plus years in the profession. But I’m not retired and do no answer to editors whose job it would be to keep me on the straight and narrow path of objectivity.

And now that I no longer draw a paycheck from any newspaper, I feel free to reveal (if, indeed, there is actually a need to break the news to anyone) that true objectivity is a pipe dream. Every reporter I’ve ever known has opinions. The good ones did – and do – manager to keep those personal feelings concealed from their readers.

My admiration for journalists knows no boundaries. It’s a thankless job and no one goes into journalism as a career for the purpose of getting rich. Joe Namath, in a moment of petulance, once characterized sports writers as “$125-a-week jerks.” He was pretty close to accurate on the $125-a-week jab. Well, Broadway Joe, if your intent is to heap criticism on writers, get in line; we’re used to it. People love to blame the messenger.

My question to an irate reader (and I’ve had to deal with many over the years) who takes issue with something I’d written about some politician is “So, just what did you learn about Mr./Ms. Politician that you’d rather not have known?” (Strangely enough, while it once stopped a Nixon supporter in his tracks, that tactic has never dissuaded a Trump supporter.)

But now that I’m looked upon as a blogger instead of a reporter – probably my writing style has a lot to do with that – sometimes it’s difficult getting people to take what I write seriously. One consistent detractor has taken to even stalking me and posting negative reviews of my books on Amazon when it’s obvious he’s never taken the trouble to actually read them. But that’s okay. I just try to consider the source and dismiss this troll out of hand.

There are those times, however, when my posts get the intended – and deserved, I felt – attention. The attempt to sneak a healthy retirement increase for State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson is a case in point. That story, posted in July 2014, after raising the fuss it warranted, prompted me to take a closer look at Louisiana State Police and I found disturbing trends throughout the Edmonson administration. Unfortunately, the mismanagement has continued long after he left LSP in 2016. It took a while, but eventually The Baton Rouge Advocate jumped on board and, to its credit, broke the story about the San Diego trip by several troopers in a state vehicle. That story was the final blow that forced Edmonson into retirement.

One LSP story the MSM keeps missing is the bogus claim that radio silence imposed during a manhunt was the reason slain Trooper ADAM GAUBERT was not discovered for 15 hours. My story about that elicited the observation from a knowledgeable reader who noted that at the end of the chase for Mathew Mire, the searchers were using a different talk group than they normally do.

There are at least 11 separate talk groups assigned to Troop A in the system used by LSP.

 One of those is designated as “car to car.”

“I believe if state police had leadership and its brass were not caught up in the chase, they would have made a simple broadcast for officers to switch to car-to-car briefly to allow a designated person to go down the roster to check for status,” the reader said.

“If someone didn’t answer, a call to cellphones and home phones should have occurred.

“The radio silence B.S. is just that. Did Troop A work any wrecks that day? How did they communicate that info?

“They didn’t have a plan in place to account for chaos at shift,” he said flatly.

I checked with “Joe,” my original source for my Oct. 12 post and his response was, “There are many, many frequencies to use. Dispatch 1 dispatch 2 car to car. And countless others. There is no reason that a voice option was not used but there are still the non-voice options. There is also the text system in the MDT (mobile data terminal – a laptop computer), which is a common way to send in crash information to the desk/ supervisor.”

Another important story the MSM tried its best to miss was the one I posted on Aug. 4 about the TAXI SCAM being imposed upon ICE detainees. But two-and-a-months later, The Advocate finally “discovered” the injustices detainees are forced to endure in obtaining transportation to airports or bus stations after their release from ICE facilities.

The point of this diatribe is to say that not all bloggers are to be dismissed as malcontents sitting in their underwear in their mothers’ basements (to paraphrase Donald Trump).

Easily the best one in Louisiana is Lamar White’s BAYOU BRIEF. Lamar and writer Sue Lincoln do the best job I’ve seen (and that includes the excellent Advocate writers) of covering the murky world of Louisiana politics. Lamar has sources I can only dream of having and his stories are thorough and riveting.

Any newspaper in the country would be honored to have someone of Lamar and Sue’s ability on their staff. Louisiana is fortunate indeed to have them. Yes, they’re bloggers but they’re damned good.

In the words of Kris Kristofferson:

I think that what they’ve done Is well worth doing

And they’re doing it the best way that they can

You’re the only one that you are fooling

When You put down what you don’t understand

–If You Don’t Like Hank Williams