By Joel Thurtell
Why such huffing and puffing from the Free Press about the First Amendment and the paper’s — and presumably the public’s — right to know what was in every one of the text messages tapped out by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his erstwhile paramour/chief of staff, Christine Beatty?
Recently, I pointed out that freedom of expression is only one of many tools employed by media giant and Detroit Free Press owner Gannett in gaining its corporate wants.
I was a bit puzzled by the paper’s aggressive effort to gain access to the remaining text messages. Back in January, the Free Press published excerpts from some 14,000 text messages between hizzoner and Beatty. It’s not clear how the paper got those text messages, because it would have been a violation of federal telecommunications law for the text message company to have released them to the Free Press without the city’s consent.
Even now, SkyTel, the text message carrier, can’t legally release those messages to an entity like the Free Press. For law enforcement purposes, they must be disclosed to someone like Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has charged the mayor and Beatty with several felony counts, including perjury. But SkyTel is prohibited, I repeat, from disclosing them to anybody else, and that includes the Detroit Free Press.
In other words, law enforcement agencies can get their hands on text messages, but the Free Press can’t. So why is the Free Press acting like it’s a law enforcement agency?
Could it be that they think they are the cops?
No, they’re too smart to make that mistake.
So what’s going on?
Momentum. Or lack thereof. Fourteen thousand messages, many of them steamy love letters, made for great reading and it sold a lot of papers. But there are only so many smarmy messages, and it seems the paper has exploited the best — or worst — of them.
What’s new? Nothing much. City council is going to try to oust the mayor, the governor is going to decide if she should depose him. There will be a preliminary exam and maybe a trial, but those events are months away. These are all results of Free Press reporting, but every media outlet will have access to those events. The Free Press wants control.
The paper needs more rancid text messages and is willing to share the limelight with the Detroit News (also owned by Free Press owner Gannett) in court to get them.
But that’s not all, and it may not even be the prime motive. What do I mean?
Well, it’s been a long time since 1967, when the Free Press last won a Pulitzer Prize for writing (the paper has won two Pulitzers since 1967, both for photography). Freepster scribes are hoping to break that run of bad luck — or lackluster journalism — by winning the coveted Pulitzer for breaking and stoking the story about the text messages exchanged between Mayor Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty. The text messages suggest hizzoner and Beatty lied in court when they said they were not having an affair, when the text messages show they were lovers.
The Free Press somehow got the text messages and broke the story. Based on the Free Press reports and her own investigation, Prosecutor Worthy has charged Kilpatrick and Beatty with perjury, among other felonies.
Great story.
But it’s helpful in garnering awards if the target of the journalistic probe is convicted of a crime. It would therefore help the Free Press’s case before the Pulitzer board if Kwame took the fall.
Now, there is some slight chance the text messages might be excluded from trial. Believe it or not, Kwame and Beatty do have some Constitutional rights, and a judge might rule that they had an expectation that those messages would be private. Remember, originally, they were (apparently) shared not with a law enforcement agency, but with a private party. A judge might rule that the original release by SkyTel was illegal. Not likely, but possible.
From the Free Press’ point of view, the more messages released, the better.
It could push a jury to convict, and that would weigh heavily with the Pulitzer judges.
Tactics, tactics, tactics.
What about the pursuit of truth?
Come on — we’re talking Pulitzer here.
Contact me at joelthurtell)at)gmail.com
