Published: May 10, 2008 04:07 pm            

EDITORIAL: Another dose of ‘truth’ … according to Joe Selliken

What kind of courage hides from public accountability?

To hear Joe Selliken tell it, you would think he and his like-minded political comrades are toiling in a repressive regime like Darfur or Burma.

So burning is “the truth” they must share about corruption in Vigo County, they are compelled to publish it in a “priceless” news sheet that appears just before local elections. But so fearful are they of … well, something, none of the writers dares sign his or her name. Only Selliken, whose PressTime Graphics produces the sheets, feels safe enough to reveal his role.

Earlier this week, he explained the latest edition to Tribune-Star reporter Sue Loughlin.

“A number of concerned citizens wanted to get out the truth, which the newspaper,” he said, meaning our newspaper, “appears to be too timid to print.”

Selliken and his anonymous writers throw around the term “the truth” a lot. Their tone suggests they have an exclusive patent on it. But point out their factual errors, small or whopper-size, and Selliken shrugs it off as if they were misplaced semi-colons.

So what if former mayor Kevin Burke really did graduate from the high school he said he did, really didn’t hire a cop who had been investigated for sexual harassment and really didn’t “personally authorize” public money to build a road for wealthy businessman Greg Gibson?

Of last November’s anti-Burke publication, Selliken told Tribune-Star reporter Arthur Foulkes: “Maybe there were some mistakes in it. I’m not sure I saw anything that was libelous.”

This week, after a last-minute hit sheet on Vigo Superior Court Judge Barbara Brugnaux, Selliken was more philosophical. He told Loughlin a lie is “not only inaccurate, but it’s inaccurate on purpose. I haven’t published anything that’s wrongful on purpose.”

No lies? OK, how about plain old irresponsible errors? To pick just a few:

The purpose of the first Selliken publication in 2006 was to shred Sarah Mullican and get Terry Modesitt elected county prosecutor. In it, someone wrote, “Only Terry Modesitt has pledged to work the hours necessary to keep your children and families safe.”

That’s ironic — and inaccurate — given that Mullican pledged to be a full-time prosecutor while Modesitt promised only to juggle his private practice with his public duties.

Publication No. 2 was dubbed Terre Haute News & Report. A multi-segment, anti-Burke effort, it included an 18-by-24-inch poster supporting Burke’s opponent, Duke Bennett, and contained so many errors, space prohibits a list.

The Tribune-Star’s Stephanie Salter filled an entire column with fact checking that debunked just two of the submissions about strip clubs and the Cherry Street parking garage. Marketing executive Brian Miller wrote a guest column for our opinion page that refuted, point by point, accusations that his company “received huge sums” to develop the city’s logo, all for a Burke “whim.”

The most recent incarnation, Vigo County News & Report, primarily targeted Brugnaux. A December 2007 Tribune-Star story by Deb Kelly was referenced in it as evidence that “Brugnaux’s Drug Court is everything that a Court should not be.”

The problem is, except for one word in quotes that was taken from our story, the anonymous summation presents a portrait of Drug Court that is the opposite of what Kelly reported. It also left out the positive testimonials by court participants.

If you have not noticed, this editorial contains the names of several people besides Selliken. The names accompanied news stories and columns in the Tribune-Star. Responsible people and publications own their work. They do not sit in dark, secretive corners and hurl accusations and insults that cannot be challenged or returned. When they make mistakes, they admit them, in print.

Asked why his contributors remain anonymous, Selliken told Loughlin that “some of it is, people feel intimidated to state what they know for fear of retaliation of some kind or another.” The sole example of such retaliation offered by Selliken was “a concerted effort on the part of the not-so good old boys to boycott Pino’s restaurant in order to at least shut me up.”

A boycott? Very scary. You don’t suppose some people might avoid a restaurant Selliken owns because his news sheets have slimed them, their friends, family or business associates?

It is impossible to know what effect Selliken and his nameless band of “truth” tellers actually had on the three elections in which they chose to get down and dirty. Mullican, Burke and Brugnaux were defeated. Then again, the group’s arch enemy, Bob Wright, remains county attorney, Gibson continues to make money and deals, and only two of the nine other candidates the group endorsed this time around managed a victory.

What is clear is that Selliken & Company have raised the cowardly, anonymous political screed to a pernicious art form. By mailing their papers right before an election, giving their targets no time to refute charges, they pollute the public arena of genuine political discourse.

Worse, every time one of their favored candidates does not emphatically and specifically denounce them and their smear sheets, the implied message is that such low tactics are acceptable.

That is bad for politics and bad for the community. What kind of courage does it take to hide from the light and throw verbal bricks at people you don’t like? What kind of “truth” would we read if the bricks were signed?

        

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