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My high school journalism teacher told us this story. He was a cub reporter at the Milwaukee Journal, working on a story at his desk, when his editor walked by.
“What’s this?” asked the editor, pointing to something on his desk.
“A tape recorder?” said the reporter, tentatively.
The editor asked if he could see it, then picked it up and promptly dropped it on the floor.
“Oh, now look what happened!” said the editor.
My teacher’s — and his old editor’s — point was that tape recorders had no business in newsrooms. His main argument was that in an era of cassette tapes as well as news cycles and deadlines, it took too long to fast-forward through the tape to find the quote you wanted. Reporters had to learn to take notes quickly and accurately so that they could write fast under pressure. A secondary point was that subjects can be intimidated by the recorder and become less forthcoming.
Still, it was an ironic lesson given that this was 1977, only a few years after Richard Nixon had been brought down by evidence he supplied himself by secretly recording conversations in the White House. I learned that recording conversations was an ill-advised practice in both politics and journalism.
Fast-forward (sorry) to this week’s story about someone from Gov. Tony Evers’ office secretly recording a May conversation with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald about how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vos and Fitzgerald are beside themselves, fuming over this “Nixonesque” breach of sacred trust and time-honored protocol. Fitzgerald said in a statement, “In 26 years in the Legislature, this is one of the most brazen examples of unethical, unprofessional conduct I have ever seen.”
Huh. Really, Mr. Majority Leader? Because I can think of some other examples of unethical, unprofessional conduct in state government that strike me as a whole lot more brazen.
Take, for example, the Republican-led redistricting process in 2011. Taxpayers paid for the maps to be drawn at a private law firm, where Republican legislators had to sign non-disclosure agreements before they could review the shape of their own new districts. Democrats, reporters and the public at large didn’t have to sign these agreements because they were denied access entirely. The result was a highly gerrymandered map that locks in Republican legislative majorities even when Democrats sweep statewide offices, as they did in 2018. I don’t know, that all seems kind of brazen to me.
Or what about Vos and Fitzgerald insisting that in-person voting move forward in the midst of the pandemic, unnecessarily putting the health of voters and poll workers at risk, just because they thought it would benefit the conservative Supreme Court justice on the ballot? (In an example of cosmic justice, it didn’t.) What about Vos showing up to work at the polls covered in personal protective gear while declaring that it was all perfectly safe? Is it just me or does that seem brazen to you too?
Then there’s the case of Evers’ Department of Agriculture secretary-designee being essentially fired by Fitzgerald’s Senate caucus because he dared to (justifiably) criticize Republicans for not freeing up money for mental health programs for stressed farmers. It was unprecedented for the Wisconsin state Senate to ever vote down a governor’s nominee and they did it not because the nominee was unqualified or had done something inappropriate, but simply because he dared criticize the majority party. Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but that strikes me as unprofessional for sure and maybe even unethical and I might go so far as to say that it was brazen.
I don’t know. It just seems to me that when you line up the unprofessional, unethical stuff that’s been done around state government in the last decade or so, Evers’ recording of a phone conversation with Vos and Fitzgerald just doesn’t seem to rate high on the list compared to the other stuff. But, of course, that’s just me.
Evers’ office’s explanation is that the recording was made so that notes could be accurate. I buy that. I don’t think there was any malicious intent, but they also should have disclosed at the start of the conversation that it was being recorded. If Vos or Fitzgerald had objected they should have shut off the recorder.
Through all this, Evers is proving once again to be a stand up guy. He’s resisting silly calls, predictably from Republicans and shamefully from at least one Democrat, to fire the staff person responsible. Evers refused to even name the staffer, who is probably a low-level aide who just wanted to get the notes right. Good for the Guv!
Evers’ office messed up. But if Vos and Fitzgerald are going to feign deep offense over this, well, it seems to me that the citizens of Wisconsin have a right to be whole lot more offended by the things these two have done to unfairly lock in their own majorities, put public health at risk in the hopes of winning an election, and fire a qualified manager just because he disagreed with them. And all that has been duly recorded.
