Jackson Free Press

OK, this is funny. In his rush to defend the controversial and secretive Better Jackson PAC, which he apparently helped organize, Northside Sun columnist David Sanders is attacking the 'flatulence' of the Jackson Free Press. This column is simply delightfully defensive, and evasive, in that it does not address why Sanders' and Wilson Carroll's PAC did not file donor reports until three hours before the polls closed under pressure from the JFP and many Jacksonians, even though Two Lakes supporters John McGowan put $6,000 into the PAC back in April, which meant they should have filed a report before the primary.

But the column isn't really about that; it's a funny little desperate attack on the JFP for daring to question the secret PAC. My favorite part is near the end, when Sanders declares that he and his friends are taking back the N-JAM label I gave them years ago because they acted so goofy, back when they were all big supporters of Frank Melton and lodged personal attacks against anyone who dared criticize him, and back when Wilson Carroll called Johnson campaign donors "a rogue's gallery of chicken-pickers." And for the record, the N-JAM Club I created only includes about six guys most of whom get together for sushi on Wednesdays, or did then. It doesn't include all white men in North Jackson. I should know; I made the term up.

He says we didn't support Carroll for D.A. because he was running against a, "gasp," black woman. Actually, we did not support Carroll for D.A. because (a) he had never prosecuted a criminal case and (b) because he used Morgan Quitno rankings from Ed Peters' tenure against Peterson. You just really can't support a potential D.A. who can't get basic facts right. As a result, he and his friends have long had it in for us. It's remarkable to see Mr. Sanders, though, try to play the race card over that one. Personally, I had never met Peterson when we endorsed her against Carroll. He was just clearly out of his league in that race.

What's remarkable to me is that they are *still talking about it.* Since the Melton campaign, I'd pretty much forgotten the sushi boyz and all their attacks on us for not supporting Melton until those names started surfacing again in the Better Jackson PAC investigation. I was amazed, frankly, that they were trying the same old tricks. I guess they figured they worked with Melton, why not try it again?

What was wacky during their Melton blitz and again during their Crisler blitz is that they blame people who want the truth about crime, PAC money or anything else with the truly nonsensical claim that we LOVE crime. How absurd can you be? And how stupid can they think our readers are? We call them out for misusing information on crime, or for twisting the former chief's "perception" words back in the day, and they in turn say we love crime. Sigh.

In fact, one of my favorite JFP threads evercame in response to a David Sanders column back during the Melton campaign in 2005 when Sanders wrote a column about the JFP for loving crime—because we dared call out the cynical and misleading use of crime statistics and Morgan Quitno rankings (which the Better Jackson PAC did again) used to help get Melton elected.

The good news is that so much of Jackson, of all races and including in their own ward and some of their own friends, have rejected their games, publicly and privately to us. People are just sick of secret and dirty games and campaigning. We are forming new alliances to be "progressive" despite political party. Most of us are getting along with each other well, and bringing new ideas to the table. It just gets ugly when game-players lstart showing up and throwing the pottery, or sending secretive mailers, or papering windshields while people are at church.

The rest of us know that the way to fight crime, increase economic development and everything else we need to do will happen when we all come together regardless of where we stand on the political spectrum and regardless of our race, as we did on runoff night (despite conventional "wisdom," Johnson also drew many votes in "white" Wards 1 and 7). The Better Jackson PAC is pushing tired, old-fashioned politics and division, and most of us want no part of it, and are willing to call them out on it. There's where their problem with us really comes in.

We do appreciate Mr. Sanders drawing more attention to the Better Jackson PAC. This is a discussion we need to keep going in our community -- to make sure that secret political action committees cannot launch such cynical attacks -- with money using crime hysteria to help get a pricey development project built that will require the government to take thousand of acres of private property using eminent domain. While Mr. Sanders and the Northside Sun use their space to try to change the subject and attack the messenger, the JFP, I encourage the rest of us to put our efforts toward transparency and honesty in elections and local government. This is change we can make with diligence and attention.

It is also interesting to note that Mr. Sanders says in this column, which was first published on a local blog Monday and written on Sunday (as he said in it), that they had filed their reports. In fact, they did not file any finance reports until Tuesday afternoon, three hours before the polls closed. And the City Clerk has no record of the finance report they were legally required to file before the primary, and could not locate an organizational form at the end of the day Monday.

He writes: "We will continue to file all required reports so long as the PAC continues in existence. Big scandal, huh?"

Yes, Mr. Sanders, it is a big scandal, and an important one. Ask the people who decided to vote against your candidate when this scandal emerged. State law is clear: It requires you guys to report in the first place so voters will know who is putting out the negative trash (secretive PACs seldom put out positive materials). And, uh, when are you going to file the primary report, anyway? And did you get any more donations last week? And where are the disbursement figures for the robocalls and radio ads you yourself in your column that y'all paid for? Those are not listed on the report y'all filed on Election Day.

For more on the Better Jackson PAC investigation, see:

Mysterious Better Jackson PAC Revealed, Sort of - May 18, 2009
Better Jackson PAC, Wilson Carroll Targeting Johnson with Scary Mailer - May 15, 2009 (includes PDFs of PAC mailers)

Previous Commentsshow

BTW, John McGowan told us yesterday that he told Crisler that he did not want his campaign donations used for "negative" campaigning. I then asked him if he told Crisler that about the PAC donation—considering that Crisler couldn't legally know anything about that—and he said he didn't talk to Crisler about one. He made it clear that his money was donated to help elect the man who would not question, and would champion, his project. McGowan said he made a mistake by donating to a PAC at all, and especially one that used the money to mail negative mailers. To my knowledge, although most of the money reported by the Better Jackson PAC came from Two Lakes people, they did not do mailers about the development project. They used the money to run ads about crime, trying to scare people into voting for Crisler -- presumably so the Two Lakes project would get undying support. And they didn't use the actual FBI crime stats, which show how much crime dropped during Johnson's tenure; they used Wilson's favorite old Morgan Quitno rankings, which mean nothing when actually analyzed. I shudder to think about this kind of sleight-of-hand trickery.

DonnaLadd

May 21 2009

OMG!!!!!!!!

justjess

May 21 2009

I just had to pop up because I saw "N-JAM" again! Its been many moons since I thought of that label. Good times.

Lori G

May 21 2009

I know, Lori. That was so long ago—back when you were still Ali! I'm really surprised that they haven't let it go. Those sushi lunches, if they still happen, must be excruciating. I guess the N-JAM joke knocked them silly way back when if they're still smarting from it. Meantime, I see that WMartin went and ripped Sanders a new one under his column. WMartin, you know he'll now label you a commie, right, for questioning his "wisdom" on torture and the, uh, unproved theory of global warming. Which is hilarious, considering your political stances. Some people just don't want to exist in a world where people believe differently than them. The JFP has friends of all political stripes who can disagree and still be civil. This morning, I had breakfast at Broad Street with Sheriff McMillin (as we often do), and we had a great chat with Jeff Good. They were on a different side in the mayor's race than I ended up, but it wasn't *personal*. As for these guys, though, I have compassion for them, as I try to for everyone. The world, the state and the city are changing around them, and that clearly is rocking their world. It must be hard to be so dug in. I find it sad more than anything.

DonnaLadd

May 21 2009

He can label me whatever he wants, I think he understands what I think of his opinion. I really didn't care that he had issues with the JFP or a difference in opinion of who would make the best Mayor. But to couch his arguments in such weak premises he was begging for a slap down. I really wish the willingly ignorant would stop picking on scientific research as some kind of politically motivated conspiracy. I will argue with anyone who tries it. They are pissing in the well of science, the one human endeavor that has brought a higher standard of living to everyone no matter where they live or what their political or religious persuasion may be.

WMartin

May 21 2009

Just in case anyone's wondering, the Morgan Quitno "awards" (their word, not mine) were based on FBI crime statistics, but, among its many and various drawbacks, made no differentiation between violent and non-violent crime. Thus, a murder or rape carried the same weight as a bicycle stolen from a garage or $5 stolen from your desk at work. By their methodology, a city with 100 murders and no thefts was as dangerous as a similarly sized city with no murders and 100 thefts. That's simply crappy data analysis. (See Wikipedia for a roundup of the MQ methodology criticisms.) Another valid criticism is that the MQ rankings did not put crime into context, revealing, for example, whether crime had risen or fallen year over year. A city could be ranked 10th most dangerous one year and 2nd most dangerous the next and without any context, you could assume the city became more dangerous, when in reality it means no such thing. It could mean absolutely nothing, but there's no way to tell. Those were the rankings used in the anti-Johnson campaign materials from the Better Jackson PAC. Rankings even the FBI warns against. Of course, Sanders also poo-poos global warming and water-boarding as torture, so I suspect it's difficult for most folks to take him seriously on anything.

Ronni_Mott

May 21 2009

By their methodology, a city with 100 murders and no thefts was as dangerous as a similarly sized city with no murders and 100 thefts. That's simply crappy data analysis. Thanks, Ronni. (And I didn't know there was a wikipedia page set up with M-Q criticisms!) This is exactly the kind of stuff we tried to explain constantly back when the Ledger was trying to use Morgan Quitno to downplay the actual crime drops during the Johnson administration. It takes no time to figure out the problems with it; people who quote them without context *always* have an agenda. We pointed out back then that, in most cities that ranked high in the dangerous ratings, the daily newspaper spent time debunking the ratings and placing them in the proper context -- because most cities in the U.S. don't have a daily newspaper that talks down its home city like the Ledger does here. Also note that one city's ranking can change dramatically simply depending on whether certain other cities report, or if other cities had major increases or drops in crime. They are simply worthless ratings, and Wilson Carroll knew it after we exposed that he had used Peters-era numbers against Peterson.

DonnaLadd

May 21 2009

Wow, Ronni, the Wikipedia stuff you posted on Morgan Quitno nails it: Criticism The FBI recommends against use of its crime statistics for the direct comparison of cities as Morgan Quitno does in its "Most Dangerous Cities" rankings. This is due to the many factors that influence crime in a particular study area such as population density and the degree of urbanization, modes of transportation of highway system, economic conditions, and citizens' attitudes toward crime. [1] In October 2007 The American Society of Criminology, The U.S. Conference of Mayors, and The Federal Bureau of Investigation requested that the publisher reconsider the promotion of the book — specifically, "their inaccurate and inflammatory press release labeling cities as 'safest' and 'most dangerous'" — because the rankings are "baseless and damaging." In November 2007 the executive board of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) approved a resolution opposing the development of city crime rankings from FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs). The resolution states the rankings "These rankings represent an irresponsible misuse of the data and do groundless harm to many communities" and "work against a key goal of our society, which is a better understanding of crime-related issues by both scientists and the public."[2] The U.S. Conference of Mayors has criticized the "Most Dangerous Cities" list, saying the annual city-by-city crime rankings are "distorted and damaging to cities' reputations." [3] [4] Cities of Illinois are not included in this ranking due to a disparity in reporting rape cases between Illinois State police data and FBI data. Other cities may not be included due to lack of some data. Morgan Quitno's "Most Dangerous Cities" ranking has been criticized as a statistical half-truth, since it does not adjust rankings of cities with wide area city limits (Houston, Jacksonville) compared to cities with inner core limits (St. Louis, Atlanta). Houston's city crime statistics, for instance, are diluted by lower crime in affluent areas within its broad city limits, whereas almost all the low crime affluent areas of St. Louis are outside its city limits, which constitute only 12.5% of its metro area. St. Louis would fall far down the dangerous cities list just by annexing adjacent suburbs in this methodology, with no actual change in personal safety. Metro area rankings include all suburbs for all MSAs and therefore have some validity.

DonnaLadd

May 21 2009

Describing property crimes as part of a "most dangerous" ranking would create a bias against low-income cities with high population density, and in favor of high-income cities with low population density. This means that the "safer" cities would skew rich and white, while the "dangerous" cities would skew poor and non-white. Or to put it another way, the MQ rankings can be used as an after-the-fact justification for white flight, but in every other conceivable way they are inferior to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Which are much easier to read anyway. Seriously, the FBI does a bangup job on those things--I used them extensively for the Facts on File reference volume I recently co-wrote on the history of the criminal justice system. I don't think I ever touched the Morgan-Quitno numbers; I don't know of any crime historian who takes them seriously, just as I don't know of any historian of the American university system who takes the U.S. News rankings (which are at least defensible) seriously. And I'm still trying to figure out how anybody could run for DA relying exclusively on the Morgan-Quitno numbers and an unsourced statistic about car theft convictions. I apparently put more effort into picking out Christmas cards than some political campaigns put into policy research.

Tom Head

May 22 2009

I'm still trying to figure out how anybody could run for DA relying exclusively on the Morgan-Quitno numbers and an unsourced statistic about car theft convictions. How does he do it? Apparently, not very effectively. He is on another site admitting the rankings are not perfect but there is just nothing better out there and if the less than perfect system that the FBI and the American Society of Criminology describes as inflammatory, inaccurate, baseless and damaging does cause damage to our city, well, that is just too damn bad. It not as hard to figure out why he wasn't elected huh?

WMartin

May 22 2009

He is on another site admitting the rankings are not perfect but there is just nothing better out there and if the less than perfect system that the FBI and the American Society of Criminology describes as inflammatory, inaccurate, baseless and damaging does cause damage to our city, well, that is just too damn bad. That's absurd. (See above.) He's trying to spin a bad situation for him. Some sent me an e-mail yesterday saying that Wilson had proclaimed on another site: “And no, it has never been discredited and remains the most commonly cited indicia of crime rankings in the United States.” Uh, you don't have to look past a simple Google to see how absurdly unfactual that statement is. *Everybody* with any knowledge of this stuff has discredited any serious use of Morgan Quitno rankings. This is such old news it's not even funny. It's why I was so shocked to see that stuff show up on the Better Jackson PAC mailer last week: No one would use that stuff in a serious way in the age of Google. It's just too easy to debunk. He should probably just quietly let it go. Sounds he' digging him self in deeper as he keeps trying to turn Morgan Quitno into a big respected keeper of crime stats. They are what they are: a book publisher that makes money off sensationalism.

DonnaLadd

May 22 2009

That column was the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've read in a long time. As WMartin posted, harping on global warming as an unproven faith of the left was a particularly poor choice. A new survey in Nature just found that 95 percent of climate scientists agree that humans are driving global warming. And the other leg of his argument is waterboarding and Dick Cheney? This column should be taught in rhetoric classes as a negative example. He clearly went to the Cheney school of logic, however. Anyone who fails to acknowledge that crime dropped dramatically during the Johnson years is either a liar or a fool. The FBI statistics are clear and irrefutable on this point, unless you play the old Melton game of arguing on the basis of absolutely no evidence that those numbers were somehow cooked. That Johnson somehow hid murders, thus throwing off the crime stats. So just as Cheney argues that Bush kept us safe even though the worst attack on American soil occurred on his watch, Wilson argues that crime was out of control under Johnson even though crime figures improved enormously in that administration. Unbelievable.

Brian C Johnson

May 22 2009

Sad fact, Brian? For his intended audience, it's probably perfect. Some people don't need facts. Look at how long race essentialism has hung on, and there was never a time when it was a scientifically viable hypothesis. Sometimes all people really want is a good myth--something they would like to believe, something that reinforces the lives they're already living, something that tells people who benefit from injustice that they deserve to benefit from injustice. And if the explanation fits the bill, it doesn't particularly matter how well, or how badly, it checks out analytically. That's not what it's for. That's why--and I try to tell liberal allies this--we will never win these arguments through ratiocination. We will either win these arguments by appealing to their consciences, or by changing the popular will so that their views become those of the minority. In most cases, anyway. I've met very few people who can be persuaded, by argument, that global warming is real, that men and women are equally intelligent, that violent crime dropped during the Johnson years, et. al. As Yogi Berra once said: There are some folks who, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.

Tom Head

May 22 2009

"Some people don't need facts.... Sometimes all people really want is a good myth--something they would like to believe..." exactly. the use of Morgan Quitno rankings in the Better Jackson PAC mailer reminds me of my sweet friend who forwards me every "danger!" and "warning!" and "the sky is falling!" email she receives... as always, i check Snopes or Google and reply to her and the other gaggle of folks she alerted (and probably freaked out) that, once again, the emperor has no clothes. simma down nah!

bryanms

May 22 2009

Good point Tom. Humans are a myth-creating, myth-believing species. Telling someone they're wrong or that what they believe in isn't true, even with mountains of evidence, rarely changes minds. Instead, it creates defensiveness. We end up like a couple of radios turned face to face, tuned to different stations with the volume turned up full blast. Lots of noise, but no listening. The best way. always, is to be demonstrations of what's true and valuable. As Gandhi put it, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Ronni_Mott

May 22 2009

Tom Head Shorter version: We'll never argue someone out of something with logic that they never got to rationally.

Pilgrim

May 22 2009

It's funny. When we had to debunk The Clarion-Ledger's really bad use of Morgan Quitno back in 2003-ish (their bad reporting set all this up), you had to look harder to find the criticisms of MQ. Since then, the FBI, the Criminology society and the Conference of Mayors, among others, have come out hard against using this rankings, as the posts above show. It sure wasn't hard to factcheck, in other words. Of course, back when Carroll used the Ed Peters-generation rankings against Peterson, it wasn't hard to factcheck, either. But you did have to click more then once. ;-) Now you really don't.

DonnaLadd

May 22 2009

True, Ronni, but in the face of overwhelming evidence against you're saying, you should just shut up, instead of digging your hole deeper.

DonnaLadd

May 22 2009

I get what y'all are saying, but I think you're oversimplifying it. I also think you're being too pessimistic. Repeating the same set of true facts over and over and over again can shift the terms of debate, in my humble opinion. We've already seen this with global warming, where the public has moved considerably closer toward the scientific consensus in recent years. I think the same thing is happening with the torture debate. As more and more people learn that waterboarding is and always has been torture, attitudes toward what the Bush administration did are shifting. Granted that there are some people who are completely immune to facts. The point is to peel away everyone else, so that the know-nothings become an ineffectual 20 percent rump. As for being the change, Ronni, I agree up to a point, but you can hardly use the word "always" to describe its applicability. You can't be the change when it comes to crime statistics or climate change or many other issues. It's an empty sentiment in those contexts. Of course, no one has ever accused me of being like Gandhi. ;)

Brian C Johnson

May 22 2009

I would add that the JFP's insistence, over and over and over again, that the media pay attention to real crime statistics instead of CL bull-malarkey has also had an impact. It may not convince Wilson, but it undermines his ability to poison public debate. Even the CL is more careful about how it handles crime statistics than it once was, and the JFP is almost entirely the cause.

Brian C Johnson

May 22 2009

That's very true, Brian. That's why it was so weird to see Wilson trot out of the old, thoroughly debunked (by us, FBI, Criminology Society, Conference of Mayors, etc.) Morgan Quitno tricks. He's never been one to think that Jacksonians are smart enough to care about the truth, it seems. And the Ledger has calmed down some on crime hysteria. However, their choice for mayor has been there for four years, and they could return to the same old sensationalistic tricks with Johnson back in office. I invite them to try, though. We're ready for them. And the public is going to demand something different from them (if it even pays attention to what they do anymore).

DonnaLadd

May 22 2009

Brian, I agree that most folks are persuadable. I'm just thinking the Northside Sun's readership probably includes a disproportionate number of folks who aren't.

Tom Head

May 22 2009

I think the editorials and columns appeal to very small part of the people who pick up the Sun. Most pick it up for the social pictures. The editorial page is more about an echo chamber for people really ticked off that the world dares change around them. It's hilarious to me that whenever Sanders gets pissed off at the JFP (inevitably for something we just do a good job on), he goes after all liberals in the first paragraph or two, and then his feathers settle down with really personal attacks on the JFP. Sadly, this is good for us, and was when he did it in the past. The people who do read it wander over here to see what in hell he's talking about, and run into our stories about, say, the Better Jackson PAC, or the law-enforcement agencies warning that Morgan Quitno rankings are "baseless." It's not my favorite way to expand our audience a little, but I'll take it. ;-)

DonnaLadd

May 22 2009

Yeah, I'm not sure how many Northside Sun readers have any idea what the hell David is talking about in columns like this one, which seem to presume knowledge not only of local politics, but of his specific social circle's involvement in local politics, dating back years. When was the last time anybody said "N-JAM"? Does he even explain what that means?

Tom Head

May 23 2009

Right, Tom. It weird enough to see Morgan Quitno quoted again, and really weird to see Sanders start talking about my N-JAM joke after all these years. I think they're still living in a certain place after the rest of us have moved on. However, if they are doing things to influence public policy based on all myths and debates, then the public needs to know. Sigh. I've thought of doing a Jackpedia page on Better Jackson PAC that would give a timeline of sorts. We could do a little glossary, like of "chicken-pushers" and where that came from. But I'm not doing it today. ;-)

DonnaLadd

May 23 2009

Funny. We already have "N-JAM Club" our local slang Jackpedia page. Remember when they used to call me "Fondrazon"? As an insult? This goes back to the Freak Press days. I knew we were going to make it when people started setting up blogs to try to discredit us. ;-) The blogs are gone (well, except one); we're still here. My advice to those guys is to find something new to talk about and push in campaign ads. Morgan Quitno is discredited, and the N-JAM glory years are past. Now, it just looks like an old obsession.

DonnaLadd

May 23 2009

Someone just posted this on Facebook: "When I consider the brevity of my life, swallowed up as it is in the eternity that precedes and will follow it, the tiny space I occupy and what is visible to me, cast as I am into a vast infinity of spaces that I know nothing of and which know nothing of me, I take fright, I am stunned to find myself here rather than elsewhere, for there is no reason why it should be here rather than there, and now rather than then." -- Blaise Pascal Today I went to a NOW meeting; I've been looking out for a sick family member (and will be up again tonight doing that); I'm reading Saul Bellow's Ravelstein; I've got a few writing deadlines, and a dissertation deadline, to watch out for; I've got a desk to clear off, if I get bored; and if I had more free time and a lower stress level right now, I'd be on a date or partying with friends. I do not understand what world these people live in, but I have too much respect for my own mortality and the mortality of others to nurse old obsessions. Besides, the new ones are so much more fun... And out-enduring your critics is definitely an accomplishment, particularly when you've got such persistent critics. I do like the fact that N-JAM isn't part of our regular working vocabulary anymore.

Tom Head

May 24 2009

Agreed, Tom. It's about as archaic now as the language in that column (someone below it is asking it if was written in 1906). Not to mention that Sanders hasn't gotten the memo that even the Bush adminstration now, after all those years of balking, admit that global warming is real. The most insidious part, though, is how Sanders less-than-subtly pushes a race frame for an issue that has nothing to do with race. The most disturbing part is where he peddles the myth that the JFP "supported" Faye Peterson when Carroll was running against her because she is a black woman. He just slammed down a race card hard there. The JFP did not know Peterson during that campaign, and at the end endorsed her because Carroll had never tried a crimnal case and was blatantly cooking Morgan Quitno numbers against her, instead of running a clean campaign. BUT, Sanders wants everyone to believe we made that decision based on race. This is the way many people play the race card these days; if you don't support one of theirs, and God help you support a more qualified person of color over someone they want, then *you* are playing race. And if you call out their games, you are automatically playing race games. No, we're just not playing *their* game, and we're even willing to expose it as the risk of getting such sophomoric, whiny responses such as Sanders' above. I guess this is what happens to people who are against progress (anti-progressive); they stew in the same juices for years and suddenly try to fight an old grudge instead of dealing with the issue at hand. Sad. And note that he never addressed why they didn't file their reports before we started scrutinizing them, and he ignores all the evidence that Morgan Quitno numbers are a bunch of bunk. I wonder if he knows how many people are capable of Googling these days. As you say, there is so much more to do in and for this city than peddling trash and obsessing over who is conservative or liberal enough for your tastes. Onward!

DonnaLadd

May 26 2009

Has anybody thought about asking the COPS about crime trends and stats hmmm?

juan cloy

May 27 2009