• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Social unrest and Covid-19 send 2020 homicide rates spiraling
Holy crap: Georgia has done it »

Off to a flying start (journalistically speaking) in 2021

January 4, 2021 by jimmycsays

One of the most thrilling things for those of us in, or who have been in, the news business is seeing a major scoop or a big takeout on a subject of keen interest.

Just four days into 2021, we’ve seen one of each — one on the national level and one locally.

Let’s go national first.

:: You know a story is big when The New York Times strips it across the top of the front page. The story I’m talking about, of course, was The Washington Post’s great scoop of President Trump’s attempt to browbeat Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his attorney into magically turning around enough votes from the Nov. 3 election to give Trump the win over President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia.

The hour-long call between Trump and Raffensperger is full of jaw-dropping quotes from Trump, such as: “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”

“Give me a break”??? It would be unbelievable, except that it’s Trump talking.

The reporter responsible for bringing the call to public attention, who got an audio recording of the complete call, was Amy Gardner, a WaPo reporter whose name I’d never heard before yesterday.

Amy Gardner

Gardner joined The Post in 2005. She first reported on the Virginia suburbs, before moving up to national reporting. Among other things, she covered the 2010 midterm elections and the 2012 battle for the Republican presidential nomination. Then she became an editor and spent five years doing that. In 2018 she returned to national political reporting.

I’ll be eager to read about how Gardner got that scoop, when the story behind the story comes out. All I can deduce at this point is that she must have at least one very good source in Georgia.

What we know is that Trump initiated the call to Raffensperger about 2:40 p.m. Saturday. Officials in the secretary of state’s office recorded it, but Raffensperger told his advisers he didn’t want to release a transcript or a recording unless the president attacked state officials or misrepresented what had been discussed. On Sunday morning, Trump unleashed a Twitter attack on Raffensperger, and Raffensperger quickly counter punched by giving the green light to release the recording.

Somehow, Gardner got the nod to be the first to get the recording.

More often than not, The New York Times beats The Post on big stories about Trump, primarily through the reporting skills of White House reporter Maggie Haberman, but this time The Post got the jump. (In a Nov. 8 profile of Haberman, NYT media columnist Ben Smith wrote that Haberman “lives rent-free in Donald Trump’s head, all over the front page of The New York Times.”)

An October 2020 story about Gardner on the George Washington University website quoted her as saying: “You have to be hungry and have an appetite for news. I find myself driven by this hunger to get a story, to beat the competitors, to signal to the sources that I’m the one who’s on it and who knows it best.”

On Sunday, she was definitely “on it,” and reporters everywhere (except maybe Maggie Haberman) are cheering from the grandstand.

::

Two local reporters had a hell of a story in the Sunday Kansas City Star. KCUR reporter and editor Dan Margolies — who I’m proud to say is a friend as well as a former colleague — and investigative Star reporter Steve Vockrodt collaborated on a disgusting but devastating story about a down-and-dirty former KCK police detective named Roger Golubski.

Dan Margolies

Steve Vockrodt

Golubski was a disgrace to law enforcement for more than 35 years. From Margolies’ and Vockrodt’s story, it appears Golubski spent much more time raping women and pressuring others into having sex in return for going easy on their relatives than he did at investigating cases. He’s also the person mostly responsible for sending Lamont McIntyre to prison for 23 years for two murders he did not commit.

The most amazing part of this story to me was that, from all appearances, at least three former police chiefs — Ron Miller, Rick Armstrong and Terry Ziegler — knew what Golubski was doing but didn’t have the guts to call him out. They simply averted their gaze.

One of those chiefs, Ziegler, who retired in September 2019, was a former partner of Golubski. On one occasion when Golubski went inside a house and allegedly raped a woman, Ziegler waited outside in their police car.

Another chief, Armstrong, was asked in a 2012 deposition if Golubski had fathered children by women who were involved in drugs or prostitution. He gave this halting answer: “I did not have any knowledge that he was involved in illegal activity with — regard his personal relationships.”

In a Sunday commentary, KC Star editorial writer Melinda Henneberger said the department presented Golubski with “a platinum-plated gift” when he retired in 2010: silence about his corrupt career.

Margolies and Vockrodt spent months combing through records and interviewing people, and they were rewarded with a front-page story that publicly shamed a terrible cop who worked for a department that has never looked very good and now looks much worse.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. on January 6, 2021 at 9:21 am Bill Hirt

    One thing I think the recording did was put a halt to other Republicans piling into the “Sedition Caucus”. I read that all White House calls are recorded for record keeping and transcription, so one wonders what the rest of Trump’s phone calls have been like the past several months.

    I saw the Georgia Secretary of State quoted saying they decided record the call after Lindsay Graham called earlier and tried to do the same thing. Apparently the Fulton County Georgia (Atlanta) District Attorney is full on this. I would not be surprised we are going to see some indictments for election fraud for the participants on the Trump side of the call. And since they would be state charges, Trump is not going to be able to do a thing about them.

    As John Harwood of CNN has said, on January 20 Donald Trump will become an obese 74 year old private citizen with substantial legal and financial problems.


    • on January 6, 2021 at 9:38 am jimmycsays

      “An obese 74-year-old private citizen.” Love that.



Comments are closed.

  • Pages

    • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
    • Contact
  • Archives

    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 511 other followers

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Cancel
%d bloggers like this: