STEVE SMITH -- What’s up

They are the orphans of news reporting. They are the people whose

stories come and go as fast as flash paper, who make the news for their

initial excitement, only to find that when it’s time to tell their

epilogue, no one cares.

Jerome Wilhoit learned that in our society, innocence is irrelevant.

What really matters is media portrayal of your story and how much mileage

a source can get out of you.

Three years ago, Wilhoit, an Orange County teacher, was accused of

being far too friendly with his students. Believing him to be completely

innocent, I used Wilhoit’s story to win a column contest in the newspaper

you’re now reading.

Recently, after he quit teaching and had his life turned inside out

and upside down, Wilhoit was not only found innocent, but so innocent

that the judge ordered all evidence of his entire encounter with all law

enforcement agencies destroyed.

An important order to be sure, but no one is able to give him back his

reputation, and in the eyes of many he will always be guilty. To be fair,

it should be noted that at least one newspaper reported the end of his

legal saga and of the turns his life has taken, but it did not refer to

the media’s contribution to his downfall.

In Wilhoit, Orange County also lost just the kind of teacher we should

be encouraging to stay, instead of pointing him toward the door.

Wendy Leece also discovered the media’s disinterest in telling the end

of the story. A few months ago, Leece was called a censor, the mildest of

all the terms, for wanting to protect kids from what she believed was

literature inappropriate for children. Her story made major media

outlets.

But when it was revealed that her current colleagues on the board of

trustees made the exact same move 2 1/2 years earlier but without any

cries of censorship, no one cared. To those who reported Leece’s initial

request, it was just typical of her, and the subsequent evidence proving

that her action was not unusual was not reported.

Doing so would make some people look silly and perhaps even force them

to say, “I was wrong” or “I am sorry,” and that just isn’t done. We learn

from this that it’s OK to smudge another’s reputation but any evidence of

our own errors must be avoided.

John Moorlach, Orange County’s treasurer and a Costa Mesa resident,

has also discovered that a fickle media can leave just about everyone

with the wrong impression.

In January, it was reported that Moorlach’s department had made two

investments of $20 million each in Edison International, the parent

company of, among other businesses, Southern California Edison, the

troubled power supplier. Never mind the fact that at the time, the

company had received top ratings from three investment-rating agencies.

Never mind the fact that the investments are but two of the 9,600

Moorlach has made since he’s been in office. Never mind the fact that the

investments total only about 3% of the total value of the investment pool

from which they were working.

Some folks just saw blood and, at the time, everyone was in on the

fun.

Back then, Moorlach made some predictions about the investments and

about Southern California Edison and -- surprise! -- they’ve all come

true.

“If we would have sold both of [the bonds], we would have realized

significant losses, but by holding them to maturity we haven’t lost a

dime,” Moorlach told me. “I said right from the beginning that Edison

International was like Orange County. If you sold Orange County bonds

right after we filed bankruptcy, you would have lost money. But if you

held on, you would have made money. I felt comfortable at the time with

plan A, which was to hold on to maturity.”

Moorlach’s “buy and hold” is a successful strategy advised every day

by those in the financial know and it is working. The first note matured

Jan. 31. The second is due July 8, and Moorlach expects that it, too,

will have been a worthwhile investment.

The success of the first bond was reported on a limited basis but at

least one newspaper buried it, and all the reports I’ve read lacked the

emotional charge of the initial reporting.

Jerome Wilhoit is innocent. Wendy Leece didn’t do anything her

colleagues had not done. John Moorlach was right about his investments.

I wish I could write that those are the ends of the stories but they

are not. In the minds of many, these good people will always be guilty,

and you may not read it in a lot of other places but it’s news to me.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.