You may or may not have read Tom Tuell's column in the Key West Citizen last Friday. Tuell joined the long line of journalists and others here in condemning Police Chief Buz Dillon's ill-conceived effort to silence Key West The Newspaper's criticism of the Police Department by throwing me in jail.
But Tuell couldn't let the opportunity go by to bash my newspaper and me personally. Those of you who may have read that column need to know where Tuell was coming from. To do that, you need to be able to recall the long-running job-fix scandal at the mosquito control district here. Key West Mayor Dennis Wardlow needed a job. A group of his friends associated with the Mosquito Control Board (MCB) allegedly arranged for a special position to be created just for Wardlow.
Only Key West The Newspaper protested. But Tom Tuell and his former employer, the Keynoter newspaper, apparently thought that the alleged job-fix was just fine. After all, the mayor did need a job.
Then, some of the alleged job-fixers came up for reelection. Only Key West The Newspaper supported their opponents, two novice politicians who promised, if elected, to unfix the job. Tuell and the Keynoter endorsed the incumbents. The job-fixers were thrown out of office by a landslide vote. And the newly-elected anti-corruption commissioners did exactly what they told the voters they would do: They unfixed the job.
Tuell and his newspaper went nuts. They tried for months— even years— to destroy the reputations of the job-unfixers and to, somehow, force them out of office. They even supported the embarrassing effort to try to have the County Commission take over the MCB. Mercifully, that effort imploded.
Only Key West The Newspaper supported the job-unfixers. And, in the end, the two new guys helped clean up what had become a pit of corruption in the mosquito control operation here and make that agency one of the most-respected in the state. Needless to say, both commissioners were reelected handily last year. Our side won. Tom Tuell's side went down in flames, bloodied and battered, smeared forever with pro-job-fix tar. He is apparently still smarting. And he took it out on me personally in his commentary.
In this context, "most local journalists" found it somewhat humorous that Tuell would presume to lecture us on journalism ethics. He even hinted that he and other unnamed journalists had ranked all of the newspapers in Key West in terms of "ethics". Unfortunately, he didn't reveal the details of that ranking. We are more than curious how his former employer, the Keynoter, and his current employer, the Citizen, placed on the Tuell Scale.
Tuell said our use of unnamed sources "unnerves most professionals." But he didn't name any of his sources who, he says, are unnerved. Later in his piece, he quotes "most of (Cooper's) contemporaries in the business." Unnamed sources all. His earlier reference to what "most local journalists" think also constitutes the use of unnamed sources.
Doesn't that, then, by Tuell's own definition, make him unethical? Or does it make him just dishonest?
But it gets worse. Tuell accused us of not worrying about accuracy. But when we called him on it, he has yet to provide a single example. We certainly do strive for accuracy— and, as we told him and his bosses in a letter faxed and mailed over the weekend, we have no problem publishing corrections when errors of fact are pointed out to us.
But Tuell was just getting warmed up. He even accused us of taking money in return for political support. Of course, he has yet to provide any documentation to support his clearly libelous statement. In reality, we usually support the underdog candidates— the guys who typically don't have any money.
So . . . is Tuell unethical? Dishonest? Or just disgruntled?
He also delivered a backhanded slap at us by suggesting that KWTN is not the richest paper in the Keys. Duh! We told him that this kind of criticism just reflects his own illustrious career of slopping at the corporate trough. Heck, if we were in this for the money, we'd be working in some minor job at the Citizen, as he is.
To those who might be "unnerved" that we would use the word "scurrilous" in our headline along with the words "Mr. Tuell": Well, that's the name he called me in his commentary. It isn't true, of course. We're too ethical to call him that name back— but if we did, we assume he would agree that would simply be turn-about fair play. He started it, Mom! Did not! Did so! Did not! Did so!
In closing, I know that Tom Tuell's personal attack on me does not represent the editorial position of the Key West Citizen— or even the opinion of a fraction of the professionals who work there. But I do want to defend Tuell's right to publish his opinion. My philosophy is that, if I'm going to dish it out, I should be able to take it. But if Tuell wants us all to believe that he's some kind of journalism ethics guru, he should at least practice what he preaches. In his commentary last Friday, he didn't do that— and "most of his contemporaries in the business" know that.