Several weeks ago when the mayor asked me to serve on the committee to help with the police chief selection, I asked him to let me think it over. As a newspaper publisher, my first responsibility is to see the public gets a fair, accurate and unvarnished report through every step of the process. Would my involvement compromise our ability to do that or the public’s perception of the impartiality of our reporting?
I have high regard for the mayor, and I’ve been involved with a lot of hiring over the years; maybe I could help, I thought. After discussing it with our news staff, we resolved that my service on the committee would not compromise our coverage. Still, I knew there would be critics.
The mayor surprised me again by asking me to chair the 21-member committee, and for the same reasons as before, I said yes. The group, consisting of media representatives, two out-of-town police chiefs, local pastors, councilmen and appointments by each of the council members, was given the resumes of 25 candidates, told to study them and then come to a meeting prepared to vote for five. I was concerned about the process. While I thought it a good idea to involve a diverse group of citizens in the selection, few of us had experience in hiring a police chief. We met, voted and then discussed our concerns. Chiefs from Vicksburg and Tupelo offered valuable insights, though after the vote.
This should be remembered: We weren’t picking the chief; we were only narrowing the field. The mayor and city council will select the chief.
One thing that happened during the call for applications went under reported. Between the first and second job ads, the city changed the education requirement from “college degree required” to “college degree preferred.” You can speculate why that was done or argue about the value of a college education, but the obvious upshot of the change was that it kept interim chief Selvain McQueen in the running. McQueen does not have a college degree.
The group agreed that a subcommittee to help the city vet the candidates could be helpful.
At this point, no background checks had been done on any of the candidates, not even a cursory Google search. Should that have been done on the five before the names were made public? Probably so.
Tuesday night, I went before the mayor and council on behalf of the committee. At that point the names and hometowns of the chosen five were made public.
Councilman Bill Gavin made a motion to create a subcommittee, which after some discussion the council approved.
Reporter Devin Golden covered the meeting and Tuesday evening around 7:30 he posted the names and hometowns of the five choices to our website. Overnight the story got 1,200 hits, for us an extraordinary large number in that amount of time. By morning readers had Googled the candidates and discovered that some had questionable backgrounds. In Wednesday’s edition, we had the report of the council meeting with my presentation and an additional story by Devin, which mirrored the readers’ findings.
At a news budget meeting after that day’s paper went to press we decided to do profiles of each of the candidates to introduce them to readers and give the candidates a opportunity to speak about their pasts. The second of that five-part series runs today.
While I participated in the planning of the stories, I have not tried to influence reporting. We don’t have a favorite at this point. When and if we do, we will express our opinion in an editorial or a column, something we’re not shy about doing. Readers will have ample opportunity to voice their opinions, as well.
There is a local faction that has from the beginning favored giving Selvain McQueen the permanent job; chief among them is Councilman Kabir Kareem. Tupelo chief Tony Carleton told the committee that hiring from within wasn’t necessarily a wise thing to do. Lt. McQueen may be the best man for the job, but most of the people I’ve spoken with think it would be foolish not to make every effort to find the most capable person available regardless of where he’s from.
Many have criticized the council and a process that has produced candidates with such dubious backgrounds. To those critics, I would say, hold your fire. This is a process. To the city’s credit, the search is being conducted in the open. It’s messy and sometimes uncomfortable. The end result is the important thing.
— Birney Imes
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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