The Associated Press

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 1

Don’t trust anyone who lies to get the story:

At what point does an illegal or objectionable action justify the use of illegal or unethical measures to expose a perceived abuse? In our book, never.

Two recent cases have surfaced in which activists employed underhand or outright fraudulent techniques to expose what they believed to be wrongdoing. Exposing two wrongs doesn’t make a third wrong right.

The most highly publicized case involved Houston-area anti-abortion activist David Daleiden, who misidentified himself to secretly record a meeting with Planned Parenthood officials and attempt to negotiate the transfer of tissue from aborted fetuses. Daleiden represented himself as a researcher but framed the dialogue with Planned Parenthood officials to make it appear as if he were making a purchase.

The entire maneuver was to create a “gotcha” sting video to entrap Planned Parenthood as a seller of baby parts. A Houston grand jury reviewed the case at the behest of Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson, a Republican and staunch abortion foe. The grand jury instead indicted Mr. Daleiden for misdemeanor purchase and sale of human organs. An associate was indicted for tampering with a government record.

In interviews afterward, Mr. Daleiden’s attorney described him as a “journalist” who was only doing what investigative journalists do all the time. He’s no journalist. Hollywood sometimes makes it appear that journalists make up the rules as we go. Sleazy ones might, but a very strict code of conduct applies to legitimate journalism.

It’s all about maintaining integrity and public trust. Lies don’t help that.

A second, less publicized case involved Global Witness, a nonprofit activist organization whose members visited the offices of various law firms in New York. They were trying to catch lawyers on video agreeing to help launder potentially illicit funds through real estate transactions. The New York Times published a series of investigative reports last year outlining how various shell companies, using money from highly suspicious sources, are a driving force behind Manhattan’s high-rise residential building boom.

Global Witness wanted to show how various lawyers play a role in making these transactions happen. So they went undercover, with a hidden camera, while claiming to work for an African government minister. Global Witness doesn’t claim to perform journalism, but its reporting clearly attempts to serve as an investigative news function.

The fact is, it’s really not very difficult to fool people, and make fools out of them, by creating false identities and manipulating them. If the video doesn’t prove the case, heck, you can edit it to make it appear as though the “gotcha” targets are saying something they really aren’t.

That doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it journalism. The news-consuming public must not be fooled.

___

Kansas City Star, Jan. 27

Tim Wolfe’s blame-casting email dodges his own role in Mizzou upheaval:

Former University of Missouri System president Tim Wolfe has sent an email telling supporters he believes the system is in crisis and he wants to play “a significant positive role” in its future.

But the incendiary nature of the email makes that possibility highly unlikely. It includes injudicious attacks on the Board of Curators and the interim system president, Michael Middleton, that seem likely to create even more of a crisis of confidence for the struggling system.

At the same time Wolfe’s missive — which could be classified broadly as a settling of scores — does bring to light some disturbing issues.

Wolfe resigned the president’s post on Nov. 9 as the University of Missouri tried to cope with mounting racial unrest, a walkout by most members of the football team and calls for the removal of MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.

The “confidential” email, sent last week and apparently intended for “a select few friends,” provides Wolfe’s take on the tumultuous events and expresses “grave concerns about the future of the university.”

If Wolfe thought his bombshell-laden letter would remain confidential, he hasn’t paid much attention to the nature of communications these days. The Columbia Tribune got ahold of the email and made it public on Wednesday.

One of Wolfe’s concerns is his own severance package. He is at an impasse with the university system’s Board of Curators over the amount and terms of a compensation package.

As he notes, Loftin, who resigned under pressure on the same day as Wolfe, was able to remain at MU as a tenured professor making three-fourths of his former salary. And former football coach Gary Pinkel, who retired a few days later for health reasons, received an offer to remain with the athletic department at a salary of almost $1 million over three years.

Wolfe’s desire for some compensation is reasonable. But Missouri lawmakers, who are angry at the university system for a myriad of reasons, aren’t likely to tolerate anything from the Board of Curators they consider excessive. Wolfe’s email probably won’t help his cause.

In the email, Wolfe confirmed reports that state Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Republican from Columbia who is chairman of the Senate’s appropriations committee, tried to get the university to deny a leave of absence for MU law professor Josh Hawley. Like Schaefer, Hawley is seeking the GOP nomination for Missouri attorney general.

Wolfe also said Schaefer asked him “to get in the middle” of MU’s tenure decision on Hawley. He said Schaefer coached Loftin prior to Loftin’s testimony before an anti-abortion committee that Schaefer chaired over the summer and leaned on at least one member of the Board of Curators to protect Loftin’s job as chancellor.

In an interview with the Tribune, Schaefer denied the allegations. But Senate leaders should take them seriously.

Schaefer has used his position as appropriations chairman to bully the university and state agencies. The public deserves to know exactly how much power he tried to wield, and how.

Wolfe’s allegations give weight to calls for Schaefer to resign his appropriations chairmanship. The senator appears unable to separate his political ambitions from his duty to objectively craft the state’s budget.

Wolfe portrayed the Board of Curators as ineffective and willing to “cave into politicians and special interest groups with agendas that are contrary to the mission of the university.”

He criticized the selection of Middleton as interim chancellor, saying Middleton had “failed miserably” in his role of promoting diversity and inclusion initiatives as an MU administrator.

“I believe the University of Missouri is under attack, and current leadership from the board on down is frozen,” Wolfe said, saying he feared cuts in state appropriations and a drop in enrollment.

The nine-member governing board, which has one vacancy, does need to project strong leadership at this time. The selection of a permanent successor to Wolfe is crucial.

___

St. Joseph News-Press, Jan. 30

4 percent too little for rural Missouri:

One small number says a lot about the challenges facing boosters of rural Northwest Missouri.

The number is 4 percent — the top end of estimates for the amount of risk capital invested in Missouri that has gone to rural areas since 2004. These same areas hold roughly 25 percent of the state’s population and unlimited potential.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce shares this information in seeking to rally support for a proposal in the legislature titled the Show Me Rural Jobs Act.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Craig Redmon, R-Canton, would create a tax credit program aimed at drawing investors to finance start-up companies and help expand businesses in areas of less than 50,000 people. The emphasis would be on businesses related to manufacturing, plant sciences, technology and agriculture technology.

The proposal would make the tax credits available to private investors only after they have financially matched the money with their own.

“The act is designed so that if the investments don’t pan out, the funds will not be recovered through taxpayers, but the investors themselves,” Redmon said.

The need for this program is supported by Jeff Craver, a principal with Advantage Capital Partners. The firm is known across the country for investing in entrepreneurial small businesses in areas underserved by traditional sources of capital.

The company seeks both a strong return on its investment and meaningful community impact — often in partnership with state and federal economic-development officials only too eager to help. But the formula requires competitive incentives to attract these private investments.

“There is a tremendous workforce capacity in rural Missouri for manufacturing and other industries,” Craver testified before a House committee. “But what’s lacking is the capital.”

The details matter, of course. But our starting point is that we support this and every other state effort that seeks to improve this situation.

___

The (Washington) Missourian, Jan. 27

Propose lower BAC:

It will be interesting to see how Missouri lawmakers react to a federal recommendation to further lower the legal alcohol level for intoxicated drivers.

With many legislators — not all — known to have a penchant for wining and dining on the lobbyists’s tabs, our guess is that the proposal will be DOA in the Missouri Capitol.

Recently, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended that states lower the blood alcohol level (BAC) from .08 to .05 percent for legal intoxication.

The organization, which can only recommend, not pass, laws, made the same appeal to states in 2013 without any action.

We don’t expect any more traction on the issue this time around.

Years ago, there was a strong push-back from some Missouri lawmakers to reducing the BAC from .10 to .08. One argument was that doing so would make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people.

However, cutting the BAC down to .08 percent, along with stronger enforcement techniques, had a strong positive effect by reducing the national annual alcohol-related death toll from 21,113 in 1982 to 9,878 in 2011, according to the NTSB.

Here in Missouri, a whopping 50 percent of traffic fatalities still are due to alcohol or drug intoxication.

While the number of DWI fatal crashes has dropped, from 266 in 2005 to 189 in 2014, the percentage is still too high.

Logically speaking, a person should never drive after drinking, no matter how few or many they’ve had.

But one of the arguments against lowering the BAC to .05 percent is that many people would reach that level after only a couple of drinks.

For that reason expect the beverage and restaurant lobbies to bear down against this proposal.

While it’s a good idea, in an ideal world, don’t hold your breath waiting for state lawmakers to embrace this recommendation any time soon.