Today in tone-deaf newspaper columns

[MisterCreosote]

An 84-year-old, mouthy white guy gets pulled over for failing to signal, and now he totally understands what it's like to be a minority who worries about getting shot and killed by police:

Ol' Clark has run-in with the law

 

[Spartan Squad]

And he got suspended indefinitely because ... wait for it ... he wasn't truthful about his encounter with police. People were more mad about how he conducted himself with police and the fact he claimed police treated him unfairly than with his line that he now understoods the plight of the minority.

Tribune editor responds to Bill Clark column

 

[JimmyHoward33]

Presuming the column was edited (no certainty in today's cut cut cut environment but let's assume).....why would he ever be suspended for a line that was left in?

People/readers can voice opinions about it, be angry about it, think its in poor taste, but in terms of the company if it got through the editing process I think it'd be wrong to punish the columnist.

I think its distasteful but from a company standpoint, if you don't cut it, it'd be weasel-y to punish a guy based on public backlash. Punishing him based on inaccuracies is deserved.

 

[Liut]

I've known Bill for years. Longtime MLB scout, member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. He's a good man with a big heart. As Bill wrote later, he lost his cool and made a mistake.

And I think Jimmy has a good point. Doesn't Gatehouse own the Trib now?

 

[DanOregon]

The column reminds me of those days when you'd go to traffic school to get a ticket wiped off your insurance. The older white guys were the best, complaining about why cops were hassling them instead of going after the drug dealers and real criminals.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Presuming the column was edited (no certainty in today's cut cut cut environment but let's assume).....why would he ever be suspended for a line that was left in?

People/readers can voice opinions about it, be angry about it, think its in poor taste, but in terms of the company if it got through the editing process I think it'd be wrong to punish the columnist.

I think its distasteful but from a company standpoint, if you don't cut it, it'd be weasel-y to punish a guy based on public backlash. Punishing him based on inaccuracies is deserved.

If he's been writing for them since the '50s, he probably has carte blanche.

Until the public backlash, that is.

 

[Vombatus]

If he's been writing for them since the '50s, he probably has carte blanche.

Until the public backlash, that is.

Hmm. Carte blanche. Another term for white privilege?


(I know, MC, it's not. Just Saturday morning word play and musings by me.)

 

[Spartan Squad]

Presuming the column was edited (no certainty in today's cut cut cut environment but let's assume).....why would he ever be suspended for a line that was left in?

People/readers can voice opinions about it, be angry about it, think its in poor taste, but in terms of the company if it got through the editing process I think it'd be wrong to punish the columnist.

I think its distasteful but from a company standpoint, if you don't cut it, it'd be weasel-y to punish a guy based on public backlash. Punishing him based on inaccuracies is deserved.

I didn't think he was suspended for the minority line. I think he was suspended for mischaracterizing how the police treated him and accusing the deputies of behavior a video proved they didn't exhibit. The minority line was in poor taste but the stuff about the sheriff's department is what got him in trouble.

 

[QYFW]

Yeah, sure.

 

[Spartan Squad]

Read the comments on the original column, read the editor's rebuke and Google Bill Clark and you'll find there were a whole helluva lot more people pissed at what he said about the police than the minority line.

 

[Vombatus]

Sheriff's story and dash cam video:

Boone County Sheriff's Department - The law has a run-in with Ol' Clark

And here is his follow up column:

Clark's response: I made 'a lousy call'

I've got a couple of issues with this. First, I didn't care for the umpire blown call analogy.

Second, he's still defending himself, using the word "allegedly" and wasn't "in" the intersection. He was partially on the shoulder before the light. He was not, in city terms, "in the box" and not an obstacle to traffic coming from the left.

I think this follow up column isn't the right tone to help the fallout situation at all. Expect a long vacation, Bill.

 

[Della9250]

This line doesn't help: "Overreact, yes; liar, I am not."

 

[Alma]

3 things:

1. The column shouldn't have run. All it takes is a call or two to the Sheriff's office and it'd have become clear that Ol Clark had subjective memory.

2. Cops are not schoolteachers or law educators or parents. Citizens are not required to be "happy" about getting a summons. (Indeed, if you put "failure to signal" up for a vote, I doubt voters would consider it a stoppable offense.) Ol Clark needs to sign a summons, not be nice about it.

Further: This Graf:

In his column Ol' Clark sings the same tune we hear so often, in that these "trivial" traffic violations should not be a reason for law enforcement to stop a vehicle or write a summons. Here is a quick Political Science refresher: law enforcement is in the Executive Branch of government, which means they enforce the laws. The Legislative Branch is responsible for creating and writing the laws. If people have a problem with what is deemed "trivial" traffic laws, then our friends down at the Capitol are the ones they need to be complaining to or about. The job of a law enforcement officer is to enforce laws, no matter if they are deemed serious or trivial and I can assure you the deputies at the Boone County Sheriff's Department are going to enforce them all.

First, yes, stops like these are trivial.

Second, these laws almost never come off the books, and here's why: the cops would go down there and testify to how dangerous it'd be not to have it. The NHSTA has failure to signal as a potential sign of drunk driving.

Third, the cops said virtually nothing to each other during the stop. Of course they didn't. The recording is on.

 

[Fredrick]

I wonder how old this columnist is? Over 80? My comment is he does deserve a suspension and if he's really over 80, I'd suggest he hang it up. I am normally against the big bad newspaper companies replacing people for any reason, cause as you know, I despise the suits, but this guy made up a tale and may be showing signs of his age/memory loss.

In theory he could enrage the community with a column like this, against the police. Sometimes I think crimes like his deserve only a warning -- turn signal and stop sign violations, but he made a lot of **** up in that column. And the minority references? Somebody, an editor if there are any, had to tell somebody this column was a bad idea. The female cop wasn't mean at all. If Gatehouse runs this paper, this guy is history. They won't care that he's written columns for 50 years; they'll be telling the editor to take away his column and reassign him and certainly with his ego, he'll quit. Or just fire him. I mean, he basically made up a column and to compare his case to that of a minority being pulled over is ridiculous. You can't write stuff like that. The cops weren't even mean to him. He was grumbling and she told him, "There's nothing to argue about." Hate to say it, but he's an older grandpa type and threw a fit getting a ticket and yes he did lie in his column.

 

[justgladtobehere]

Failure to signal is a great way to get pain in the ass drivers. On the highway, the drivers who don't signal usually are the ones weaving in and out of traffic. If they ate taking a turn, you get stuck behind them when you could go around if you knew they were making a turn.

 

[Bud_Bundy]

I wonder how old this columnist is? Over 80? My comment is he does deserve a suspension and if he's really over 80, I'd suggest he hang it up. I am normally against the big bad newspaper companies replacing people for any reason, cause as you know, I despise the suits, but this guy made up a tale and may be showing signs of his age/memory loss.

Story says he is 84.

 

[Doc Holliday]

His follow-up column is too defensive and far from apologetic. As an angry, tired old man, he's dug his heels in even though he lied and embellished everything. Time to let him put his boots up and rest them for a while. A long while. As a reader, I'm as offended by his follow-up as I was the first column. He admits he made a mistake but he hardly seems sorry about it.

 

[Vombatus]

His follow-up column is too defensive and far from apologetic. As an angry, tired old man, he's dug his heels in even though he lied and embellished everything. Time to let him put his boots up and rest them for a while. A long while. As a reader, I'm as offended by his follow-up as I was the first column. He admits he made a mistake but he hardly seems sorry about it.

My thoughts exactly. And the whole umpire blown call schtick was applied to HIS actions, but to me it seemed to be a thinly veiled comment that the police blew a call my pulling him over for just a failure to signal.

I couldn't find a comments section on his follow up piece. Maybe they deliberately turned the comments off on that one.

 

[hondo]

I've known Bill for years. Longtime MLB scout, member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. He's a good man with a big heart. As Bill wrote later, he lost his cool and made a mistake.

And I think Jimmy has a good point. Doesn't Gatehouse own the Trib now?

He lost his cool for getting a ticket for not signaling? When the cop was polite the entire time? After he appeared to be fleeing the stop at one point?
He acted like an asshole and deserves all the derision he's getting. And if he thinks he now knows what it's like to live in the hood and be a minority, he's sadly mistaken.

 

[Alma]

He lost his cool for getting a ticket for not signaling? When the cop was polite the entire time? After he appeared to be fleeing the stop at one point?
He acted like an asshole and deserves all the derision he's getting. And if he thinks he now knows what it's like to live in the hood and be a minority, he's sadly mistaken.

In a sense, it's revealing, though, that he does feel that way, that he acted that way, too.

People do not want to be stopped for this ****. They do not want to pay however many dollars for this ****. They do not want to be lectured for it. And if you gave voters the opportunity to line item veto certain traffic laws out of existence, this one would be kicked to the curb fast.

Police are on the front lines of BS like this all the time. But here's why: There are too many nickel and dime laws that exist precisely to fund the government and the police department.