Re: Your “Leaky Richard” article in today’s “Political Eye” column
To: cking@stlamerican.com, areid@stlamerican.com, dsuggs@stlamerican.com
I assure you I’ve been covering the schools beat long enough to have lots of sources at all levels, from classrooms to administrative, and the person that tipped me about Bourisaw’s firing was not Richard Gaines or any other member of the Special Administrative Board.
You owe Mr. Gaines an apology.
adf
Antonio D. French
Editor-in-Chief, PubDef.net
The following misrepresentation printed in the Feb. 14, 2008 edition of the St. Louis American:
Leaky Richard?
Antonio D. French at Pub Def got the jump on the news that the newly confirmed Rick Sullivan and the SLPS Special Administrative Board he chairs was pretty much giving Diana Bourisaw the axe. That is, they offered her to apply for a job that she already had! Despite his professional relationship with school choice proponent Rodney Hubbard, French has kept fairly tight with the public school activists, and someone in that crowd, perhaps in the district offices, may have heard from the (in effect) axed super. Then again, French was still working with Lewis Reed when Reed appointed Richard Gaines to the SAB. Last we checked, Reed and French had fallen out, big time, but these things change (fast), and French and Gaines may have kept open a line of communication independent of the appointing authority himself. Gaines would have been in a hurry to get this news out about the super’s fate - reportedly he has been wanting to start a candidate search to replace Bourisaw since the day he got appointed.
February 14th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
What’s the deal with the reported falling out with the great visionary Lewis Reed?
February 15th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Sounds like you played with the snakes too long Mr. French. Watch out they will turn on you and they bite.
I hope you learn that if you make up stories and play with liars like Suggs they will turn on you eventually.
Too bad.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Oracle, given the very premise of the American’s article is absolutely false, there is no reason to believe anything else in it.
Since turning my attention to getting Rodney Hubbard elected to the state senate, Lewis Reed is no longer a client of mine. That is hardly a “falling out”.
On a personal level, Lewis and I have a fine relationship, as I do with most of the city’s aldermen.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Thanks for the clarification, Antonio.
It is a shame that the city’s highest circulation black weekly is so damaging its credibility with self-inflicted wounds.
February 15th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Hmmm… I thought Lewis was pretty pissed the other night when Senka didn’t move her shellfish right away.
What a ridiculous story. What kind of journalist just makes stuff up?
February 15th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Journalists DON’T just make stuff up…therefore they aren’t ANY kind of journalist and shouldn’t be referred to as such.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:56 am
the american is just mad they didn’t break the story. american why not reveal that the post own you and you are no longer a “black news paper”