MCBRIDE ADULTERY WAS "ACADEMIC"

IT'S ACADEMIC!

PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CHIEF ENDED WITH PUBLICATION OF ARTICLE
THEN, IT WAS OFF TO SCHOOL!

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld
By Michael Horne
And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

* * *

"At the time of the Brocach’s meeting in May, I was an academic who no longer covered Flynn and would not ever do so again."
-- Jessica McBride, on her "professional" status at the time she commenced her affair with Chief Edward Flynn.

What an odd thing to say. In stressing that she did not engage in amorous relations with Milwaukee's police chief as a journalist, why on earth did Jessica McBride feel obliged to cast herself in the role of an academic? Why this need to wear a professional hat while engaging in extramarital sex? What is this mortarboard doing in the bedroom? Why didn't she just call herself "a passionate, sensual wife and mother, but most of all a woman in need of completion?"

The McBride / Flynn affair has gone national, with much being made of possible violations of journalistic ethics by McBride due to her writing a profile of Flynn in Milwaukee Magazine.
McBride says the affair did not begin until May, long after the article had been submitted, and editor Bruce Murphy gives an account that tends to corroborate McBride.
This moots the argument that McBride committed a journalistic ethical lapse by sleeping with the subject of her story while it was being researched and written. She was released from those bonds once the story was published, provided she never write about Flynn again.
Well, that's a start.
However, the damage is done to the magazine, since, by most standards there was no story to report without the journalistic connection and the imputed ethical lapse.
I would have argued that the story could have become public without tying it into the Milwaukee Magazine profile. Jessica McBride is a sufficiently public figure that she could have been outed on a prima facie basis. Plus, the record shows she is a repeat offender at this sort of thing.
Unfortunately the magazine took the hit. I think that is a shame, since Milwaukee Magazine is a very collegial place, and a respectable publication. I have written many stories for the magazine (most recently June, 2009), and Jessica's actions, although not unethical, are still an embarrassment. From now on, if I write a positive article in Milwaukee Magazine, I fully expect folks to ask if I slept with the subject, ha-ha.



UPDATE: I was wrong about Jessica McBride's title and job review status. McBride is a lecturer, not an instructor, and therefore is not part of the academic faculty. Here is her listing on the UWM Faculty Website. As you can see, McBride has contributed a bit to the confusion about her title herself over the years.
For example, she was listed as an instructor in the Milwaukee Magazine itself in October 2008:
"Jessica McBride is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer and a UW-Milwaukee journalism instructor."

Here is where I got called out. I guess lecturers are easier to fire than Instructors, if that is any consolation.

--Michael Horne