The fact that it is not easy for KJ to put this issue to bed is not entirely the fault of the sloppy Sac Bee who published documents dropped off by a political opponent. It is impossible sometimes to discern what KJ is trying to say, to put it mildly. When asked if he paid a settlement to the Phoenix teenager who brought accusations against him in 1996 he said
“I think the important thing, and I’ve always said this all along, is you have to protect the rights of individuals,” Johnson said. “And privacy rights are at first and foremost of what I have to do on a regular basis in this community.”
The Bee correctly points out he doesn’t mention whose privacy. It must not be his own, since a flat “No” answer would be very helpful in clearing this up. I suppose though, since it is not totally established that a settlement request was made, saying No would confirm that there was a request to turn down. I don’t know. It’s true that he has never been charged with anything in these cases, but one wishes that for clarity’s sake, just for once a man accused in a case like this would have more to say than “no charges have been ever assessed toward me.” Something like “I have never acted in an improper manner toward any teenage girl.”
The Sac Rag 
DMZ, I understand your point. I do want to note that the peace officer unions have endorsed KJ, and I trust that they did their due diligence in researching the record of each of the candidates in addition to their interviews. This is speculation on my part, so if anyone is involved in the police endorsement process, please correct me if I am wrong.
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Mrs Cool told me yesterday that the PO union reps who announced they supported him have said that they “grilled him” before endorsing.
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in this whole fiasco he’s never just said, “no, nothing happened.” that says so much.
it seemed to me that the rep from the PO union that was featured on all the news channels last night was taking it a little personally that they didn’t catch this stuff and overcompensated by coming to johnson’s defense so forcefully. it seems too early for these organizations as well as some city council members to back johnson when he hasn’t said word one on his plans for the mayor’s office when/if he gets there.
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The Phoenix stuff has been known by many, many folks for years…students at Sac Charter reportedly papered the school a year or so ago with a 1996 story from a weekly Phoenix newspaper on the investigation (after similar allegations emerged involving students there). Without physical evidence or witnesses, such cases are often difficult to successfully prosecute, especially when the alleged perpetrator is a local sports god. Padilla simply tracked down the police report…the Bee could have and should have done the same months ago, especially before the ed board endorsed the renewal of Sac Charter and before columnists at the paper started writing positively about a possible KJ run.
I’m also at a loss how the local police union rep could conduct due diligence when the girl (now woman) in question is “unfortunately” unable to speak about this (certainly alluding to some sort of settlement). He just asked Johnson about it. Nothing more (one of the more troubling aspects of this story). The report Padilla tracked down includes a law enforcement recommendation to seek prosecution, something the union rep ignores.
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I’m sorry, but are you seriously saying that if a political candidate brings up some dirt on an opponent, the media should NOT cover it? what kind of retarded reasoning is that? Didn’t the Bee say in their article that Padilla had brought up the dirt? Were they supposed to ignore it?
Yeah, the media should’ve brought this up back when the whole charter school fight happened, but isn’t it possible that the writers covering KJ now aren’t the ones who covered him then (too bad the bee doesn’t have old articles up)? If that’s the case, slamming them for continuing to bring up the issue is like slamming Sac Rag for also not being on the ball back then (neither were around to report it!).
I do think the Bee (unless they were working on it for the past few months and then were forced to just cover Padilla’s announcement) should’ve brought it up earlier. I first heard about the phoenix report when Cosmo brought it up in the news and review.
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Hi Jean,
I’m not sure if your comment is in response to mine. If so, I just want to make clear that I am in complete agreement with you.
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nah I was in reference to dmz
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The SacRag didn’t even exist in 2003. If it did, I am sure that our highly paid investigative reporting team would have reported it.
I agree with DMZ’z point that the Bee should be doing their own investigative journalism rather than letting PR cronies and political hacks tip them off about stories. This is indicative of the state of journalism across the country, not just at the SacBee. Newspapers are investing less and less in funding quality journalism and relying more on wire reports and from broadcast sources than independent investigations.
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Guess stickie has never heard of a simile?
Its possible the Bee was working on something before Padilla coughed up the documents. See this cbs13 clip here, where before an interview with KJ starts, the reporter mentions that they’ve heard the paper is working on a story:
http://cbs13.com/video/?id=31892@kovr.dayport.com
If thats the case, Padilla could’ve forced their hand.
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Guess Jean is unfamiliar with snark?
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Jean, what could they possibly have been working on? All that they printed with Padilla’s help was a rehashing of facts that were reported on 12 years ago.
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“You have to protect the rights of individuals”??
‘Splain please? Beacause I don’t think that correct. The most important thing- particularly when runing for/fulfilling the duties of public office, are the rights of SOCIETY- NOT the individual. You should balance the rights of the individual against those of society, but the individual’s rights do not always trump… Unless Mr. Johnston is now coming out as a Libertarian?
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i’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what a libertarian is…he’d probably ask one for a book or something.
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“ask one for a book” HAHAHA that was one of my favorite skits from “in living color” which I heard was going to be in reruns… But I think it’s still racist.
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I ran into Mayor Fargo at the Earth Day thing at Southside Park. She was wearing green on 4/20. I asked her, “Are you wearing green in honor of 420?” she just froze and looked the other way. Who says Kevin Johnson is the only one who doesn’t answer questions? I’m voting for the dude in the cowboy hat! This item was in Lisa Heyamoto’s column this morning.
http://www.sacbee.com/heyamoto/story/879449.html
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Why does everybody think they could put out a better paper than the Bee…or any other newspaper? Go to any city and there will be complaints about the paper there being incompetent.
It would seem odd that there isn’t anybody in the entire journalism industry who knows how to put out a newspaper the right way.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a tougher job than all the complainers assume.
I’m not saying you have to agree with the Bee all the time, but the complaining is oftentimes pointless, misguided and annoying.
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Maybe the modern journalism industry isn’t the same as the modern newspaper industry?
If I may: The newspaper is like a forest. The journalists’ stories are the trees. Journalists learn all about trees, but not the forest.
And contrary to what the “environmentalists” say, the forest is not stagnent– it changes. Altering the font of the headlines just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Without complaints, the status quo remains.
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Well put, TS
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Speaking as someone who is complaining about the complaints I certianly understand the value of complaining.
No matter who writes the paper, there are gonna be complaints. Even if Turty Squip were writing, someone would complain that TS was biased and missing the point and screwing up and doing a bad job. That’s just how it goes and that’s how it’s always gonna go.
I’m just saying the newspaper complaints annoy me.
Before you complain about the paper, just know that they are just folks doing their jobs and think about what it would be like if hundreds of thousands of people were scrutinizing your every move at work.
I can’t imagine the complaints I would get about my messy desk, procrastination and frequent visits to sacrag.com.
I know it comes with the territory for a newspaper journalist, but I still tend to cut them some slack.
I mean, even if I read something in the Bee that is full of fluff and typos, I never feel the need to complain about it.
Maybe I’m just nice.
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