The snapshot graphic shown here from the Google News Directories is the headline and opening paragraph of a recent blog on Daytona Beach Police Chief Michael Chitwod's favorite derogatory word, 'scumbag.'
DAYTONA BEACH -- Journalism is more than reporting the news. It's more than beating the competition. And it's more than making a point. Sometimes an important ingredient is left out: Journalism ethics.
Sometimes in the daily grind of cranking out the news it can take a back seat: A blog I wrote ripping Daytona Police Chief Michael Chitwood for his news blackout of this Internet newspaper in retaliation for our award-winning investigative story on corruption in his department is one such example.
While some people absolutely loved it others were asking me why I would lower myself to his level. In the end, I decided to kill the blog several hours later after posting it because I felt uneasy. I was struggling with my journalism ethics.
I unpublished it not because of right or wrong, per se, but more so because of the timing. There is much more still to be uncovered and reported.
Here is what one of my friends, a retired cop, who was against the blog, wrote: You blew all you gained by your presentation and persistence with the blog and the use of the scumbag quote and cartoon. You are supposed to be a professional journalist and yet you lowered yourself to his level and then laid bragging on top of it. You won and you should have reported that in a professional and objective manner. Instead you got petty and lowered yourself to his level. He will use this against you and is laughing all the way back to his office. I am your friend but I got to tell you when you go the wrong way.
Another friend of mine, also a retired cop, took just the opposite view: You told it like it was and showed that finally somebody has the guts to stand up to this guy. He's a bully. It's always his way or the highway. This had a lot of people realizing what a joke he has been all along and all of the problems he is trying to mask in his own police department. Look, he doesn't even have any respect for the men and women who work for him, calling the place Romper Room. It's good that you fought back.
I wrote the blog right after I directly addressed the elected officials and top administrators at Wednesday night's city commission meeting. It was headlined, Hey Chitwood? Who's the 'scumbag' now?
The blog itself recapped how he had his PIOs cut us off from the press releases sent out to local media outlets while he and his assigned public information officers ignored our repeated calls and e-mail requests for police information; first with a series of prostitution stings, then the arrest of a suspected serial burglar and more recently two shotgun slayings within three days of each other.
Why? Because our inside sources told us he was trying to laugh off the investigative story we wrote earlier in the year on his promotion of a patrol supervisor who had allegedly mistreated two women cops. We were told Chitwood got reamed out by the city manager after the story was first published.
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Daytona Beach Police Chief Michael Chitwood knows how to use labels to his advantage. Is it right to throw labels right back at him when he's trying to control what the media reports? Such is an ethical dilemma.
So Chitwood started letting everyone know how he felt about me and the Internet newspaper I built from scratch nearly five years ago. According to the sources, Chitwood had described me as a has been, now in the role of pretend reporter with a crappy website full of typos that nobody reads.
That was until the 2012 awards came out last month for excellence in journalism Florida Press Club and I won four awards, more than any other reporter in the competition. Two of the awards recognized the story that got Chitwood fired up: Daytona police chief promotes patrol supervisor who taunted female cop for more than a year.
The funny thing about the blog on Chitwwod, though, was in spite of the headline I wrote, the blog concluded that deserved or not, I was not going to call him a "scumbag" like he has so many times to others he deems undesirables. It's all part of Chitwood's Walking Tall Buford Pusser persona.
And as for my retired cop friend who chastised me for striking back at Chitwood since in his words "I won" by virtue of the city manager ordering him to put me back on his e-mail distribution list, let me be clear about this. I didn't win anything because nothing has changed since then.
The way to deal with people like Michael Chitwood is to do what I do best. And that's dig deep into the public records that he doesn't control -- the personnel files and court records -- continue working the inside sources and pounding the pavement for quotes and insight.
The way to deal with people like Michael Chitwood is to do what I do best. And that's dig deep into the public records that he doesn't control -- the personnel files and court records -- continue working the inside sources and pounding the pavement for quotes and insight.
Eventually, Chitwood is going to realize, this is a fight he can't win. Either the city will reign him in or the courts will.