Teresa Chambers and Her Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This is a national story, but I thought some folks around here might be interested in what was happening to former Durham Police Chief Teresa Chambers. It seems that Chambers is about to be fired from her job as the chief of the National Park Police because she went on the record with a Washington Post reporter describing very specifically how her agency was underfunded, and what that meant on the ground.

http://www.slate.com/id/2093330/

I commend her on her courage and forthrightness, but I hope I'm not the only one who's struck by the irony. In Durham, Chambers was not known as someone who was forthright with the press. Indeed, she did everything she could to manage the department's image, which in her mind meant choking off the local press's access to police officers and police documents. Her feud with the Herald-Sun was particularly nasty and personal.

Then she goes to Washington and suddenly she's a whistleblower and a friend of the press? Better late than never, I suppose.

Issues: 

Comments

I just realized the Herald-Sun has been all over this story, and their editorial on Dec. 22 made the same point I make above, only more succinctly and with admirable restraint. I really need to read the paper every day.

Don't be too hard on yourself, Duncan. You're only one man.

If Chambers can become the champion of the first amendment, then surely Marcia Conner is headed straight for a CNN pundit job after she gets booted, right?

Here is a woman who, during the botched police chief search, calls a press conference, reads a statement at a podium in an auditorium and WTVD 11's wide shot reveals there are about a dozen people there at most. She takes no questions and no doubt was surprised that her stock with the media did not rise. Why do people take high profile jobs then complain that they're scrutinized by the news media?

I dunno, Jean, maybe because certain creationist myth loving moronic columnists misquote them while they report things inaccurately.

Thanks for clearing that up, Drago.

I think what Drago is referring to is the propensity of the Herald-Sun to pick out targets that they feel represent opposition to their strange brand of neo-conservatism and maliciously attack them. John Cole's mean, sophomoric, and often illogical cartoons are very representative of the way they tailor their "news coverage" to their political agenda. The Chapel Hill Herald fortunately rarely sinks to that level because I guess they are aware of the community that they serve and the Herald-Sun braintrust knows that there would be financial repercussions if they took the same tire-biting dog approach to progressive issues.

Mark

I would NOT exclude the CH Herald from that assessment. The editorials clearly show a dislike for the town and the citizens in favor of UNC and, as you say, a neocon vision. "Intrepid" means fearless and I find Ms. Bolduc's columns cowardly and dishonest, not to mention ill-informed..........

Mark,

I'm pretty sure that Chambers was not singled out because she was opposed to the paper's "neoconservatism," -- she certainly didn't strike me as being anything other than conservative and authoritarian. Anyway, I'd describe the Herald-Sun's politics as plain old "conservatism," not neoconservatism, since I doubt the folks over there were ever big readers of anything like The Partisan Review, or anything by old man Kristol (or even son Bill, the lesser), and they certainly don't come out of the intellectual milieu that produced the neocons. (And the Partisan Review folded this year -- too late now.) Feel free to speculate on what intellectual milieu they come out of, if any. ;)

(Leaving everything else aside, I'm continually grateful for the paper's stand against the death penalty.)

Chambers appeared to be an overly secretive, thin-skinned public servant leading a government agency that deserved close scrutiny and criticism. This was the case whether or not the Herald-Sun had other bones to pick with her.

Ad Hominem already "Drago"?

Teresa Chambers.

Deep emnity to Michael Peterson.

Working a Job with ready acccess to Owls, many unregistered.

Looks pretty bad.

 

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