From: Gregg M. Ward <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tue, Jul 21, 2015 at 9:09 PM
Subject: Professor mayor
To: "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>


Professor mayor
Posted on July 21, 2015 by admin
By Joel Thurtell

Butch Hollowell, Mike Duggan’s mouthpiece, claims there was nothing to
hide in his private emails to minions of Matty Moroun last spring as
city officials cut the land swap deal involving Detroit’s Riverside
Park.

If there was nothing secret about the deal, why did Mayor Duggan’s
staff lie to Wayne State University journalism students who asked to
see the written deal?

Class reporters Alexander Franzen and Timothy Carroll asked for the
document on May 12 and again on May 14. The students were taking a
Wayne State University investigative reporting class taught by me. The
week-long assignment for eight students was to dig into the land deal
between Mike and Matty.

Duggan staffers told the students the swap was only “an idea” and did
not exist as a record.

After the WSU reporters’ departure from Duggan’s office on May 14,
staff from the mayor’s office sent the agreement to City Council. The
following day, a friend outside government sent me a copy of the
agreement that came from a council member.

Something more than a mere “idea,” the multi-page document is dated
April 29 and was notarized on May 4. It was a paper record, not just
an “idea.”

The students were bamboozled by Duggan’s henchmen, presumably
following Mike’s orders.

What does that make Mike?

A superb teacher.

I wanted my students to learn I.F. Stone’s maxim that reporters should
assume officials are prima facie liars until they prove otherwise.

Thanks for the lesson, Mike!

http://www.joelontheroad.com/professor-mayor/

 

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