When in doubt, blame the media.
Was your hand caught in the cookie jar? Blame the media. Did you lose an election by a wide margin? Blame the media. And, of course, if there is a problem with ethics and/or money, who do you blame? The media.
I’ve defended Robert Archibald’s tenure at the Missouri History Museum, and I do think there was a rush to judgment by many of the people who were supposedly running the place as members of this board or that board. Archibald got a lot of cash, some of which I too question. I also think he got a raw deal. But I don’t blame the media for following the story, and the media didn’t create the land deal that led to his woes.
Former Rockwood School District board member Steve Smith helped create his own problems—guess who he blames. You got it, the media!
Smith resigned Sunday night from his board seat in Rockwood. A former president of the same board, Smith has been a part of several questionable decisions involving Glenn Construction. The Post-Dispatch was the first to report in 2011 on no-bid contracts and other expenditures to that construction management firm.
Last week, State Auditor Tom Schweich released an audit that concluded the board overpaid the company by more than $1.2 million over 10 years. There were double payments on some work-related bond projects. If that weren’t bad enough for the taxpayers of Rockwood—and the state of Missouri—the audit reported that Smith voted in favor of contracts for Glenn at least 12 times when he was a paid employee of the firm.
That’s not good.
Smith has defended himself numerous times, saying that he never cast a deciding vote on a contract involving Glenn and that he wasn’t on the board when Glenn was hired in 2010 for a bond issue project. He also said he never “knowingly voted to benefit Glenn.”
Now that he has stepped down and the baying hounds can be heard in the distance, Smith has followed the path of many other canary swallowers as yellow feathers fall to the floor.
It’s the media’s fault.
He wrote in his resignation letter, “"I have tried time and again to defend myself. However, politics and journalism have become drive-by events rather than dialogue and discussion. I have become the main target and that is not helpful to kids."
Maybe second only to blaming the media in times of crisis is using the word “kids.” Smith wasn’t done yet, though. “I no longer wish to expend my energy trying to explain myself and to withstand the diatribes of the uninformed. I am tired and, quite honestly, unwilling to continue in this vein.”
If not for the 2011 Post article, Smith might still be a board member, and Glenn could still have the inside track to more contracts, because we might still be uninformed. The Rockwood taxpayers who sought an audit might still be uninformed.
The media would not be getting the blame, and it would most likely be business as usual. That would not have been good for “the kids.”
Commentary by Alvin Reid
