Why all the spite and venom?
Written by Michael Miller | Editor in Chief | mmiller@toledofreepress.comDear Mr. Miller,
I have to completely agree with Mayor Carty Finkbeiner’s response to your recent editorial attacks (“Recognizing some ‘meaningful, positive facts,’” Oct. 12). You have been writing very angry and critical, with “spite and venom,” as the mayor says. I enjoyed your writing more when you wrote about what a great community we have or talked about your kids. Why the hostility?
Susan T., Sylvania
Dear Susan,
After three years of watching Carty’s declining job performance and increasing alliance with the malignant influence of John Delano Block, my concern is that if we remain silent and don’t speak up, my kids will not have this great community to live in; it will sink and disappear into a morass of bad politics and worse business dealings.
When my boys take the time in 20 years to look back on my work, they will know that I fought for this region and refused to quietly allow two conspiring mental cases to derail Toledo’s progress and future.
MM
Mr. Miller,
You are spinning out of control. You have a bad case of Block envy. You are … bitter because The Blade would never hire you … in the losers’ locker room known as Northwest Ohio … you know you dwell in the pits.
Name withheld by request
Dear Jack,
And you think I’m bitter?
Just for the record, I have never asked John Block for any job at The Blade. How the reporters and editors there can stomach the manipulation and agenda-driven stories is beyond my moral and professional imagination.
My criticisms are not inspired by envy but by anger at the interference and abuse of power I see. I see it when the daily newspaper’s management threatens the funding of nonprofit organizations that work with other media. I see it when mediocre puppets are turned into kings, and kings are reduced to clay-pigeon targets. I see it when community-supported agencies are held hostage and denied choices by backroom alliances forged by fear, ignorance and compliant, complacent stewards.
And since you invoked locker rooms and dwelling in the pits — screw you, screw your attitude and screw your sour, myopic take on Northwest Ohio.
MM
Dear Mr. Miller,
Any news about the United Way building?
Roger S., Toledo
Dear Roger,
The news is that the people who work there are diligently focusing on the current fundraising campaign to ensure this community’s many needs are met. You can help by donating to United Way and the agencies it supports. Call (419) 248-2424. Tell them Michael and Carty sent you.
MM
Dear Mr. Miller,
I recently read in Toledo Business Journal an editorial that questioned your newspaper’s role in the media leak of the Jim Hartung investigation. The comments weren’t very clear, but they seemed to indicate your publication was complicit in bringing Hartung down. That seems at odds with your news coverage and editorial stances.
Robert F., Perrysburg
Dear Robert,
It seems at odds because it is at odds. My speculation is that the powers behind the investigation wanted it to be a “clean kill.” They wanted Hartung investigated and fired in one announcement to avoid public scrutiny. Our breaking the story before the conspirators were ready may have given Hartung a fighting chance, as the investigation became public earlier than the shadow masters expected.
A person being questioned in the Hartung investigation made a flip comment to Toledo Free Press Publisher Thomas Pounds at a social event. The comment was not made in any context of confidentiality, but when that tip was passed to our reporters and followed up on, that source balked and refused to go on the record or confirm the news. We then contacted Port Authority Board Chairman Bill Carroll, who confirmed there was an investigation. From there, we spoke to the woman involved in the alleged affair, Kathy Teigland, then Hartung, then other board members, then the mayor.
If anyone from Toledo Business Journal had bothered to pick up a telephone and ask, I could have told them this, but in its rush to condemn The Blade, Toledo Business Journal adopted some of its reporting practices.
MM
Dear Mr. Miller,
Will Toledo Free Press endorse Obama or McCain?
Annette K., Toledo
Dear Annette,
Neither. Publisher Tom Pounds might offer an opinion in his column, and I might, and we’ll welcome cogent letters from readers, but we do not follow the traditional model of publishing anonymous endorsements. As an institution, the last time we published an “editorial board”-type endorsement was the last time Finkbeiner ran for mayor, and we’re in no hurry to invoke that karma again.
MM
Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.
