Thursday, September 10, 2009
Education / Media / Politics / Woods Democrats Try to Quash Scene Story About Rep. Mike Turner
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 4:22 PM
At the meeting, Turner described his reasons for supporting the rezoning plan in stark racial terms, according to a Scene source.
The source tells the Scene that Turner informed the assembled leaders they were "causing trouble." "You need to get on board with this," Turner supposedly said. "Everybody's for this. Look, this is the way to have neighborhood schools, which everybody wants including the blacks in town. This rezoning plan will put the whites in their neighborhood schools and the blacks in their neighborhood schools, and everybody will be better off. We've got a few blacks in my district, and they just love this idea.'"And then literally," the source says, "literally, he said, 'I talk to blacks in my district, and they're some of my best friends.' "
Turner hotly disputes this account as "a lie," and at least two others at the meeting don't remember him saying that, either. Regardless, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the NAACP lawsuit, Larry Woods, says he'll try to use it as evidence of the city's racial motivation in drawing up the rezoning plan.
(Oh to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. Also, Schulz supposedly got all hot and bothered and went on a rant, denying he's a "red-necked segregationist." )
Now here's a little tidbit that's not in the Scene article. In an attempt to protect Turner, Democrats tried to talk me out of writing about this meeting, and even the usually loquacious Woods wouldn't cough up Turner's name. Won Choi, co-chairman of the Nashville NAACP's education committee and also a big local Democrat, went so far as to offer to tip me to developments in the lawsuit if I wouldn't write about Turner and the meeting.
The moral of this story? The NAACP is determined to bring racial equality to Nashville, um, except when it might make a prominent Democrat look bad.
* Note to Won Choi: It'll take more than a few lame news tips to stop the mighty Pith in the Wind's relentless pursuit of the truth. How about drinks at Morton's?
Comments (21)
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This is the same Mike Turner who appeared on the Liberadio show in June and called school bussing in the Sixties wrong. He's just sayin' what he believes!
http://www.liberadio.com/2009/06/16/liberadio-podcast-june-15-2009-with-rep-mike-turner-peter-cunningham/
This is sad and hardball. Jerry Maynard is right: regardless of the decision, this is a lose-lose situation for Nashville.
Does it bother anyone else that two other sources besides Turner say they never heard him say anything like this, yet the Scene still runs with it based on the word of a single anonymous source?
If he said anything close, it's absolutely scurrilous. But without better corroboration, I'd be suspicious that the source might have simply been trying to make Turner look bad, and told a reporter something he wanted to hear.
This will get ugly. Many things have been said with multiple audiences and people talk when they get nervous about their own survival. That's how any case is solved.
Wow. Can't believe we still have people like this in the Democratic Party.
http://tomoveanation.com
Yes Bubbadog, it does bother me. I'm over this shady "journalism" that has permeated our "news". Cheap shots, and borderline defamation of character at the stroke of this "reporter's" pen. As long as the cloak of "sources" is used, all is well.
This is the same Mike Turner who, in giving a speech about his support for SJR127, said that he would support his daughters' right to have an abortion were she to be impregnated by "some gangster or hoodlum," right?
Just checkin'.
Wow. Can't believe we still have people like this in the Democratic Party.
Which is one reason why a lot of sensible people just don't participate. These people are the leadership of the party.
We don't use anonymous sources unless we believe they know what they're talking about. If you're identifying these sources, they might not tell you the truth for fear of pissing off someone.
In this case, that someone would be Turner. What was said in this meeting is described in the NAACP's lawsuit. Turner's name was omitted. We found out who the lawsuit was talking about and wrote a story about it, giving all sides. There's nothing shady about it.
I have a hard time believing that Won Choi would be defending the Democratic Party at the expense of something that could be key in reversing Metro's rezoning scheme. Choi has been instrumental in fighting to have the rezoning overturned. Trying to squash something that will help his cause seems counterproductive and intuitive.
Wouldn't be the first time that the Dems have tried to have it both ways. Choi can fight to have the plan overturned while Turner can fight to preserve it, and the unspoken agreement is, "you don't make me look bad in the process."
"Turner hotly disputes this account as "a lie," and at least two others at the meeting don't remember him saying that, either. Regardless, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the NAACP lawsuit, Larry Woods, says he'll try to use it as evidence of the city's racial motivation in drawing up the rezoning plan."
Woods....this is my big issue with this story. It's shades of the Republican scheme, just keep repeating the lie long enough and people will believe it attitude. Facts become irrelevant. Look at Asshat Wilson (R-SC) sticking to his lie about illegals being covered under the WH plan for insurance reform. Back it up with some hard evidence of what was said, or call it what it is....rumors.
Woods, your explanation doesn't change the math. You said you have one source who claims that Turner said these things. You said there are two sources who said they never heard him say anything like that. The lawsuit (not surprisingly) chose to invoke this one source, and this somehow makes it news? If Turner really did say this, it's a huge smoking gun for the case that at least some white civic leaders are pursuing a resegregationist agenda. But a better journalistic course here might have been to talk to a lot more of the people who were at the meeting before running with this story. One person's claim, when rebutted by two eyewitnesses, does not a story make.
See, this is a perfect example of why I love your blog!! You're not held back by all that 'accuracy in journalism' mumbo jumbo.
Gee guys, I'm sorry if I stepped on some of your Democrat toes here. I thought I was supposed to get to the bottom of whether this rezoning plan was racially motivated. What was I thinking?
Oh, now we're back to a straw man defense. Or is it a red herring?
Anyway, Woods, nobody cares if you step on the toes of Democrats. The state Democrats are idiots. But you're deflecting the real issue.
You wrote, "What was said in this meeting is described in the NAACP lawsuit." The problem is that we can't really be sure what was said at the meeting when your story, like the lawsuit, cites only one person who heard the alleged remarks, and you have TWO people who say they never heard them. THATS THE CRUX OF THE PROBLEM HERE, NOT THAT YOU'RE STEPPING ON THE DEMOCRATS.
Did Turner say these things? It looks like we don't know. Maybe he said them and the two contradicting witnesses simply didn't hear them. Maybe the two are lying (along with Turner). Maybe the source who claims Turner said these things is the liar.
Is it also conceivable, given your claims that the Chamber of Commerce types are promoting "resegregation," that you accepted as probably true an allegation that fit into your narrative of the larger story?
The one thing we apparently do know about this is that there were more than three other people besides Turner in the meeting. How many of them have you talked to? What did they say?
Your preceding post is right about one thing: You are supposed to get to the bottom of whether this rezoning plan was racially motivated. So get to it! On this Turner piece, it looks like you've barely scratched the surface.
"Wow. Can't believe we still have people like this in the Democratic Party."
Ever hear of Robert Byrd?
yep!i can believe its the same mike turner that I met in 2004,when he first brought up
his don't women have any brains and don't have any so say over their bodies,so we men have to step in and tell them they have to remain pregant even if its rape.unless its my daughter that is.......
Jeff/ Nice to know that The Tennessean editors are reading Pith. From Deb Fisher's column yesterday:
"This past week, I read a story in a local publication built entirely around an anonymous source who was directly quoted directly quoting another person, who denied saying what the anonymous source said he said.
Amazing, I thought. And how disappointing."
What Fisher didnt say was what, if any, efforts the Tennessean had been making to try to find out who, according to the plaintiffs, had said those remarks quoted in the complaint. (None, I suspect.)
I wish you had asked Jim Blumstein how the comments from Mike Turner, even if if accurately repeated, might
affect the suit. I suspect he would think them not nearly as significant as you seem to believe. Recognizing that a return to neighborhood schools will necessarily produce more segregated schools and having a discussion about the political consequences of that result is not necessarily evidence of racial animosity. It may just be---and in this case likely is---evidence of someone trying to have an honest discussion about a very difficult topic.
