St. Biased … oops I mean … St. Louis Magazine's “The Kirkwood Shootings” Article

Below is my email to the editors of the St. Biased … oops I mean … St. Louis Magazine regarding their article entitled “The Kirkwood Shootings” in their May, 2008 edition.

Note: I made a few corrections from the original email which I put in [brackets] to better clarify a few of my statements. Sorry, I do not have a staff of editors checking over my emails and postings before I send them. But, I do try my best.

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Dear Mr. Schenkenberg and Mr. Halverson,

I wanted to write this letter directly to Ms. Jeannette Cooperman the author of the 4-part article on the Kirkwood Shootings. But, I could not find a way to contact her through your web site. So, I hope you will forward this email to her. Also, I hope you will read it, because the article missed the mark in too many ways.

As a 10-year resident of Kirkwood, who has been politically active in the community since 2003, I have to speak out about how extremely disappointed I am in the article. This article overall is oh so incredibly jaded and biased. I hope you will take the time to seriously read this email, because I plan to critique, confront and challenge your reporting.

The first section “Why did Cookie Kill?” and the last section “The Man Who Threw Chairs” are the only two bright spots in a journalistic sense with the overall article. These sections bring light onto the subject giving the reader a good mix of the different shades of the tragic events.

The other two sections, however, are very unbalanced and one-sided pieces of reporting. The key to why the rest of the article is so very unbalanced and one-sided can be found in your journalist’s own words, “McCallie’s one of the pillars of Kirkwood, and while his detractors tire of his courting of the media and his self-appointed role as the liberal conscience of a conservative community.” I would have to agree with this statement regarding Franklin. He is self-appointed, he has made some very strong stands in this community over the years and the press has lauded him with one inordinate amount of ink and air time. This Franklin-Press mingling is definitely not a “strangers in the night” relationship for either party. Sadly to the detriment of a balanced view point, the press has gone out of their way to court Franklin, just as much as he has gone out of his way to court the press [over the years].

My question is … since this is the case with Franklin, then why did Ms. Cooperman so miserably fail to get and report the opinions of the self-appointed (non-elected) conservative pillars of this community?

I read and re-read these two sections of the article numerous times. All I read is primarily the comments of the past and present elected leaders of Kirkwood, the comments of Franklin and the comments of the various alleged “disenfranchised” citizens in Kirkwood. Not a single comment from a non-elected conservative pillar or regular citizen bringing an opposing viewpoint for the reader to see regarding wards, the allegations of “disenfranchisement" or other issues. Once again another biased and jaded article that in a childish manner frames the discussion by simply pitting one group of citizens against the elected leaders of the community. This kind of poor reporting by the press is what leads to such terms as "vocal minority" or "malcontents" or "ax-grinders" who are "divisive." These are the only folks that get the ink at the cost of the rest of the community. In Kirkwood it is a core group of about two dozen alleged "disenfranchised" citizens that are catered to by the press at the expense of the other 27,000 residents.

For example, Ms. Cooperman does a piece on Mrs. Karr giving her an overwhelmingly large amount of credit for her “work” in the community. But, did we read one sentence or one word, even if it was anonymous, from one of her detractors? This article is like so many written on the subject of Mrs. Karr, a former local reporter. Ms. Cooperman effectively painted a picture that Mrs. Karr could do no wrong in Kirkwood and had no opposition from regular citizens. That is incredibly disappointing. Not only because this picture is so unrealistic in general [about any politician], but it is so far from the facts of the issue in Kirkwood. I find it hard to believe in a community of 27,000 people, Mrs. Cooperman could not find one detractor willing to speak the truth and be the “self-appointed … conservative conscience of the predominantly liberal alleged ‘disenfranchised’ in our community?”

Yet, Mrs. Cooperman had no problem reporting attacks against the community and its elected body from an anonymous source, who is definitely a member of the alleged “disenfranchised.” We all got to read this lovely statement,

“Do they realize Kirkwood’s the only city in America where you can be mayor without an election? It’s a power grab,” a Democrat insists, pointing out that Karr was the only Democrat on a supposedly nonpartisan council.”

Who on your editorial staff vetted this anonymous statement? What journalistic fact-finding techniques were used to verify the accuracy of this statement?

As a white, conservative, Reagan Republican, I know exactly how asinine and ridiculous this statement is in the community of Kirkwood. I am someone who has supported a Democrat, our Deputy Mayor, Tim Griffin numerous times when he has run for City Council. Needless to say, I find your lack of journalistic accuracy and fairness in this anonymous statement insulting at best. I probably disagree with Tim on a variety of national and state issues and have disagreed with him on community issues, but I whole-heartedly support him serving anywhere on the City Council. He had done a fine job on the Council up until the shooting. Since the shootings he has excelled beyond my expectations as an elected leader in this community. The same can be said of Paul Ward. Paul, though he describes himself as an Independent, was raised in a strong Democratic family and can fairly be said to have Democratic leanings. Yet, I have supported him when he has run for City Council and would support him serving anywhere on the City Council.

This is the case among the vast majority of my conservative, white, Republican friends and acquaintances in Kirkwood. We want on our City Council whoever is going to best serve our community no matter what national party affiliation they may have. The City Council is about Kirkwood as a whole. My Democratic friends and acquaintances in Kirkwood follow the same philosophy. It was not until Mrs. Karr began her Mayoral campaign that her supporters started interjecting party affiliation as a bizarre reverse litmus test. If you did not support Connie, you were no longer a true “Democrat” in their eyes. Just ask the Democrats in Kirkwood that have and continue to come under attack politically from Mrs. Karr’s supporters in the local Democrat party.

The lack of vetting statements and verifying accuracy continues in the article. No more prime example of this is the piece regarding Mr. Steve Eagleton,

"Steve Eagleton, nephew of former Democratic powerhouse Sen. Thomas Eagleton, stands against the back wall—but only because he couldn’t find a seat. “The city attorney basically runs Kirkwood,” Eagleton told me earlier. “The city council members defer to him for virtually every question from what color socks to wear to which zoning to approve. He makes it very clear that he does not represent the citizens, he works for the council. So you have a group of people that defers to one guy, and that guy turns around and says, ‘I represent you.’ This has been Hessel’s little baby for years.”

Eagleton, a developer with a law degree who moved to Kirkwood last summer, says, “We’ve called the Missouri attorney general’s office and the secretary of state’s office and the board of elections, and none would bring action against Kirkwood for postponing its election.”

All that can be said in response to this is … What a ridiculous piece of reporting!

I am not a journalist or a rocket scientist for that matter, but how does Mr. Eagleton, who just “moved to Kirkwood last summer” mysteriously get all this grand, in depth knowledge of how our City Council works to be able to realistically say it “has been Hessel’s little baby for years.” After you answer that question, there are four more very simple questions to answer: Who is the candidate Mr. Hessel is the campaign treasurer for in the upcoming November election in the Kirkwood area? What State seat in the Kirkwood area is the Democrat Mr. Eagleton running for in the August primary? What will be the most contested State race in the metropolitan area given a certain high ranking State legislative official from the Kirkwood area is term limited out? Can you connect the dots to see why Mr. Eagleton would make those kinds of statements to a reporter in hopes of getting it printed? [Note: I have moved the order of the last 2 sentences from the original.]

It is interesting how the previous mentioned “anonymous” Democrat made the charge that Kirkwood City Council is partisan by saying it is “a supposedly nonpartisan council.” Yet, Ms. Cooperman will report a very partisan attack from a Democrat candidate against a Republican candidate’s campaign staff member in her article. Who again has interjected party affiliation into the issue of the City Council of Kirkwood? Well not only is it the alleged “disenfranchised,” now it is an all too willing press.

Finally, there is the issue of the reporting on the 2003 ward proposal. And once again, there is not an ounce of depth in the reporting. Not a single comment from a citizen in opposition to the 2003 ward proposal or wards in general in Kirkwood. The only two people quoted on the issue were Franklin and of course the 15-year long proponent of wards in Kirkwood, Mrs. Kathy Paulsen. No offense to Franklin, but his grasp of the ward issue is totally off-base and painfully superficial. His knowledge of the ward issue in Kirkwood and the facts regarding wards vs. at-large in the St. Louis metropolitan area are almost non-existent.

Yet, there were two different citizen campaigns that opposed the 2003 ward campaign Mrs. Karr, Mrs. Paulsen and Mrs. Debbie Mutrux headed, called K-Fair. The first group of citizens opposing K-Fair’s ward proposal was Citizens for a United Kirkwood (CUK). Not a single member of CUK was interviewed in the article on the issue of wards. But its membership was chocked full of pillars of the community – both Democrats and Republicans. Then, there was the other citizen group opposing K-Fair that contained only one citizen, me. The much maligned by the Karr supporters, Joe “Joe Kirkwood” Toenjes. In fact, I was yet again demonized by Mrs. Gwynn Wahlman, a member of the alleged “disenfranchised,” as she made her comments at “The Return to City Hall” meeting Ms Cooperman was reporting on. I did not respond at that meeting to Gwynn’s comments due to the highly charged nature of the meeting. Plus, all I had to do was consider the source.

My ward campaign was separate from the CUK group, because some of the members of CUK could not figure out what to do with me. Some of the Kirkwood born-and-raised folks were shocked I would publicly call K-Fair and its supporters out for their various let me nicely say “misrepresentations” about their ward proposal. So, I started my own one-man campaign to defeat K-Fair’s proposal my own way – confronting the issue with the facts and making the same kind of demands of the members of K-Fair that they made of our City Council, City Administration and various boards and commissions over the years. It was a give K-Fair a "taste of their own medicine" kind of campaign that they really did not appreciate. By the way, I was able to successfully get my message out to the City Council and ultimately to the community even in the allegedly restrictive 3-minute citizen comment portion of the City Council meetings. Mrs. Karr and her supporters [began] to dread me pointing out one more baseless claim or broken promise of their K-Fair campaign at each City Council meeting.

The crowning achievement of my campaign was my flyer I canvassed with door-to-door all over the community showing how K-Fair’s ward proposal that was written in secret by Mrs. Karr and Mr. Godi’s supporters somehow magically twisted our charter and election calendar, so that they were the only sitting City Council members who could possibly [consecutively] serve 14 years and 15 years [respectively,] which is well beyond the two consecutive 4-year terms [(8 consecutive years)] spelled out in the charter. So, that makes you wonder just why K-Fair’s ward proposal got proposed in 2003. Could that ever be perceived as an unfair and outrageous power grab by the alleged “disenfranchised” of K-Fair?

Just for the record, I could have provided facts, figures and an immense amount of background information any reporter could ever want on the issue of wards versus at-large in Kirkwood going all the way back to 1992 and election results analysis of the issue from the St. Louis metropolitan area going all the way back to 1990. Too bad Ms. Cooperman never explored any opposing viewpoints of the issue of wards in Kirkwood.

It is my hope that you will take my remarks as what they are meant for … to critique, confront and challenge your reporting. Then, take a very seriously hard look at the article you produced on the Kirkwood Shooting issue. Because, I have only taken a couple plunges into the bias of the article. There are several more issues regarding the reporting of the TIF, Turner School and other Meacham Park issues that missed the mark.

If you ever plan to do another article on the community of Kirkwood it is my sincere hope you will provide a more balanced picture of our community.

Until that occurs please take some time to check out my blog on Kirkwood issues: www.joekirkwood.blogspot.com. If you think I was hard on you with this email, you should read my comments about my journalist sparring buddy Don “Scoop” Corrigan at the Webster-Kirkwood Times.

In conclusion, I will be sending this email to my fellow Kirkwoodians Franklin McCallie and Tripp Frolchtstein. I mentioned Franklin repeatedly and would not want my words to be misinterpreted. I want them to come directly from me. Then, Tripp since I always include him in my challenges of area journalists. Tripp consistently has a good response for me to think about when I send out these challenges to journalists. Plus, I appreciate both Franklin's and Tripp's honest critique of what I have had to say in the past.

I truly hope to receive a response from Ms. Cooperman or you the editors of St. Louis Magazine. Please do not hesitate to contact me.

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