Don’t let bad apples ruin the batch

TONY DODERO

I got an e-mail message the other day from a local lawyer, who took

me to task for some language I used in my column last week.

That column was discussing the reasoning behind our editorial that

beseeched the families of Sierra Soto and Brandon Wiener to end their

lawsuit against the operators of the preschool where a ruthless man

killed their children five years ago.

In the column, my lawyer e-mail pal complained of the following

unfair swipe: “It was meant to shine the light away from litigation

and on to legislation, away from lawyers eager to make a buck on the

basis of tragedy.”

Here’s an excerpt from his e-mail response: “I do not disagree

that there are cases in which a legislative solution to a problem may

be better than litigation. I do not disagree that there are cases

where a lawsuit is unwarranted and the motives of either the

plaintiffs or the lawyers, or both, may be questioned. I freely

concede that I and most other lawyers work to make a buck (despite my

having written off hundreds of thousands of dollars of fees accrued

on cases where the client ran out of money). I do not believe that I

need to apologize for that fact. But the simple fact that lawyers,

like other professionals and everyone else, need to get paid for

their time should not make them such convenient targets.”

I knew how he felt.

You see because along with lawyers as the most dishonest of

professions are me and my brothers and sisters in the media.

Every time I’ve taken cheap shots at lawyers, I’ve had to remind

myself that I count a number of them among my friends or

acquaintances or even family members, many of whom I have nothing but

respect.

Yet, I do detest those lawyers who take on frivolous lawsuits. I

really dislike to hear their claims that sometimes families have no

“choice” but to sue. That’s hogwash. Choosing not to sue is easy.

I’ve done it many times when in reality I had a worthy case.

Even to my e-mail friend, I’m going to do as you ask and

“withdraw” my broad brush painting of the legal profession. I do

realize that for every bad lawyer, there are 10 who do great things

and 10 more who provide great services to society and their clients.

It was not my intent to stereotype them all.

But I also would like to plea with the readers to extend this same

courtesy to those members of the Fourth Estate who are dragged

undeservedly into the muck and stereotyped because of the few

scallywags in our profession.

A perfect example occurred last week.

Many of you may remember the case of Jayson Blair.

He was a New York Times reporter who was caught plagiarizing

stories and fired from his lofty perch atop journalism’s pinnacle. It

wasn’t that Blair goofed up and fudged once, he made a career of it,

and the extensity of his lies brought shame and disrepute upon the

nation’s preeminent newspaper of record.

Last week, Blair unveiled his memoirs in a book titled “Burning

Down My Masters’ House,” and consequently dredged up fresh memories

of his disgraceful and egregious actions that cost him his job as

well as the jobs of his editor and managing editor.

At last check, less than 500 people had actually purchased the

book, according to figures from the country’s top bookstore chains.

Thank goodness.

Thank goodness that, so far, it looks like cheating and lying

isn’t going to be rewarded with vast riches. I hope nobody buys this

book. I know I won’t.

Instead, I hope to use its miserable failure as an example for my

journalism students at Orange Coast College to see how cheaters don’t

win in the end.

But either way, we have a problem.

The Jayson Blairs of the world have further tainted a once-noble

career that didn’t need any more problems.

What can we do to fix it?

Some of the answers are easy. We need to root out dishonest

reporting and reporters. We need to hire the strongest and most

talented journalists we can afford.

My personal feeling is that we also need to become more accessible

and more visible to our readers. We need to listen to their

complaints and act on them.

This column was conceived to help with that. I want to give

readers a connection to the editor that they might have felt they had

in the past. That’s also one of the reasons why we publish our

reporter’s e-mail addresses and phone numbers on page 2 and on the

tail end of stories.

But we can do more.

My boss, Publisher Tom Johnson, and I have been discussing ways to

be more interactive with the community. Community meetings with the

editor or publisher, editor for the day assignments and newsroom

tours are just some of the ideas we are tossing around.

So stay tuned, as we get ready to hatch some of these ideas in the

coming months. I’ll keep you up to date.

Honest, I will.