I attended last night's forum for the two candidates for Mayor of Neenah. As I often do at Council and committee meetings, I recorded the proceedings. I'm not acting as a reporter, as such; there are things said that I find worth reviewing from time to time and it's useful to hear exactly what was said. Last night was one of those times.
I transcribed the introductory remarks of Neenah Council President, Todd Stevenson and posted them in their entirety last night in this post.
Duke Behnke, the Neenah beat reporter for the Appleton Post-Crescent, was there. He heard Stevenson address the slur made about his thinking abilities by a sitting Council member while campaigning for Stevenson's opponent, Mayor Scherck. Behnke witnessed how quiet it got in the Council chambers as people hung on Stevenson's every word.
The question and answer session between the two candidates was interesting, but not nearly so riveting as Stevenson's introductory remarks. There wasn't a person in that chamber who didn't wonder who it might have been that was foolish enough to say such a thing.
Afterwards, I spoke to Behnke as we all stood up to leave. I said to him, "I suppose the only question now is, 'Who was it?' " I figured that he would find out, if anyone would. When I made the sardonic comment, "But nobody will say anything," he said something like, "Yes, I will."
At the time I was so overcome that an alderman had said something so foolish that I completely forgot that Stevenson had practically named the person who said it. That is, if you read the transcript, you'll see that he said it was a "city council member campaigning on their own behalf and soliciting support for both the council member and for George."
Still thinking that it could have been any of the Council members, after speaking with Behnke I chatted with Lee Hillstrom, who is up for re-election in the 3rd District. Lee is a gentleman from his head to his toes. There is no way on God's green earth that he could have said anything remotely resembling what Stevenson claimed. While I was listening to the candidates give their answers, I listed the Council members and immediately crossed off Lee's name. As I said, everyone in the chamber was pondering the big question. Hillstrom didn't say who he thought might have been the culprit; I figured later that he, too, must have forgotten that Stevenson practically pin-pointed who it was.
I'm not going to say the name here either. This morning I expected to read something about the incident on the Post-Crescent's web site, but I was surprised to find that it was if it never happened. Here's the article written by Behnke. It left me scratching my head.
Were Stevenson's remarks newsworthy? They certainly were judging by the reaction of the 30+ people attending the forum; that is, total silence and riveted attention. Would reporting those remarks in the newspaper have qualified as gossip or libel? I can't believe it would. The entire forum will be broadcast five separate times in the coming 10 days. Anyone in the world may watch it and figure out for himself just who Stevenson referred to.
The simplest explanation, I suppose, is that it was the news editor who removed any reference to Stevenson's remarks that Behnke made in his piece. It just seems odd that the identity of the person will remain unspoken...but I'm also affected by the reticence that has gripped everyone else.
Stevenson said that Mayor Scherck had apologized for that person's remarks before the forum. Scherck himself apologized during his response to the first forum question and again during his concluding remarks. So it wasn't as if Stevenson was relating unsubstantiated hearsay.
So, what is it that causes us to refrain from saying the name after we've figured out just who it must have been?
You may view the entire debate on Time Warner cable public access channel 2 at these times:
- 3:00pm Saturday March 27th
- 8:00pm Sunday March 28th
- 12:00pm Wednesday March 31st
- 5:30pm Saturday April 3rd
- 8:00pm Sunday April 4th.