Attorney General Merrick Garland should act on the contempt case against Steve Bannon, Justice Stephen Breyer should retire, Democratic senators Diane Feinstein and Patrick Leahy are getting old, the filibuster should be retained but reformed and former Attorney General Eric Holder was too slow to release the report clearing former Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson.

Those are some of the newsy comments that MSNBC/NBC commentator Claire McCaskill made Wednesday night at a First Amendment celebration sponsored by the Gateway Journalism Review. The former Missouri senator was interviewed by Jo Mannies, retired political reporter for St. Louis Public Radio and the Post-Dispatch and by GJR publisher William H. Freivogel. Listen to a recording of the entire interview.

The focus of the evening was the First Amendment, media literacy and democracy and McCaskill’s transition from elected public official to political commentator.

The media is failing because the business model is failing, the former US senator said.

“I think the media is failing in that they are falling into a business model, which is not their fault, they’re trying to make money,” she said. “People are going to cable news outlets for affirmation, they’re not going for information. They’re going to feel righteous and correct.”

McCaskill said the meager core of journalists who are still toiling away, who have editors, and actually have to report factual information, are doing amazing work right now. There is just not enough critical mass anymore. 

Cable news outlets are a bunch of silos, Mannies said. There is the CNN silo, Fox silo, MSNBC silo. She asked McCaskill why she chose to join MSNBC, which is an admittedly liberal news organization. 

“The reason that I went with MSNBC was because I felt comfortable there,” McCaskill said. “Frankly, their willingness to give me a lot of latitude in my contract, both in scheduling and how much I appeared and where I appeared, was also important.” 

Mannies asked McCaskill for suggestions regarding how the average viewer is supposed to know which outlets are “crazy town,” and which ones are trying to get the facts straight.

“I recommend to people that they watch a little bit of everything,” McCaskill said. “I think reading is really important, and I’m just not talking about links on Facebook, I’m talking about whether it’s online or old fashioned paper, reading where there are editors, where reporters must run their stories by editors.”

She said she is a big believer that people should get their main news from places where there are editors, not on Twitter or not on Facebook, but places where reporters are still expected to play it straight. 

People pretending to be news outlets online has been a real problem, she said. These outlets that have started newspapers, that aren’t really newspapers, put up a banner online to make it look like a newspaper and create a name that sounds like a newspaper. (GJR probed a network of these pseudo-newspapers in Illinois.)

“Then, they print garbage,” McCaskill said. “And before you know it, depending on how sensational the garbage is, how much it makes you afraid or makes you angry, it’s everywhere. It’s around the world, and it’s not even a newspaper.” 

A media literacy advocate, Jessica Brown, asked how, in “post-truth” age, can a media literate electorate be developed? 

McCaskill said she believes most people who are taking college courses in media literacy already realize it’s a problem, so the question is how to reach the people who don’t take those courses. 

“I think kids need to be taught what is going on,” she said. “Why is TikTok not reliable? Why being an Instagram star should not be your goal in life? What is an editor? What is straight journalism? How can you recognize it?” 

McCaskill said if she was in charge of the world right now, she would require a media literacy class in 7th grade for every public school student in the country. 

“I think we’re at that point in our democracy, that it is that important,” she said. 

Frustration with Garland

McCaskill is frustrated that Attorney General Garland has not announced what he is doing with  Congress’ criminal referral for Bannon refusing to testify about the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.  

McCaskill was responding in part to a question from Michael Wolff, former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, who asked if Garland had been a judge too long to be an effective prosecutor.

“As someone who was the state prosecutor, I have very little respect for the molasses-like speed of the federal law enforcement apparatus,” McCaskill said. “What would they be investigating? Either they are going to do it or they aren’t, either he is going to appoint a special counsel or he isn’t.

“If I were still in the Senate, I would be pounding my podium for Garland to make a decision and move so we can get this thing going.  There is no excuse for him not to announce what the DOJ is doing with the contempt that they have been sent by the White House representatives.” 

McCaskill told for the first time a story about her frustrations with former Attorney General  Holder’s slowness in releasing the federal investigation explaining why the Justice Department was not charging  former Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown in 2014. The killing triggered months of protests and strengthened the Black Lives Matter movement.

McCaskill said the Justice report says exactly what the Grand Jury said in St. Louis County that there was plenty of evidence that Brown reached into Wilson’s police car and wrestled to gain control of his service revolver.

“Eric was so worried, I think, about the impact it would have that he held it until they finished the pattern and practice,” she said. The pattern or practice investigation found compelling evidence of unconstitutional police practices.

Both the report clearing Wilson and the pattern or practice investigation were released at the same time. She said the New York Times reported the pattern and practice investigation and buried in the story that there was no basis for any action against the police officer for the actual shooting.

“So, in one fell swoop, they undermine the effectiveness, in many ways, of the law enforcement community in St. Louis County for many, many years to come,” McCaskill said. 

McCaskill said she called the White House to complain and was told the president didn’t interfere with the Justice Department.

That hands off approach “got blown up during Trump’s years,” McCaskill said. “There was no line. He saw that lawyer as his lawyer. It is outrageous what he tried to do with the Department of Justice. So, I think there is a desire to get that line back to normal, to get it out of the political realm and back to the calling balls and strikes.”

She thinks Garland is reacting to the Trump abuses by trying to get back to traditional norms. But she said she would continue to be critical of Garland until he acts on Bannon.

Breyer should retire now

Dale Singer, a former Post-Dispatch editorial writer and reporter for St. Louis Public Radio asked if Justice Breyer should retire to preserve rights like those recognized in New York Times v. Sullivan.

McCaskill did not hesitate. “I think he should retire,” she said. “I think he should retire tomorrow.”

She added, “We have some really old Democratic senators,” pointing in particular to Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy and California’s Diane Feinstein. “I love Diane, but she’s very old, she’s the oldest (Democratic senator). I love Pat Leahy, he’s very old. If anything happened to either one of them then we’re no longer the majority. So I wish Breyer would retire so that we could make sure we at least hold on to three seats (in the Supreme Court) as far as values I worked for for 30 some years.”

Should Feinstein retire? “Diane blew me away. She was hyperprepared. She wasn’t staff driven. …..I think she has struggled lately. Her husband’s in very bad health. I don’t know what it is about that place that people don’t want to go home. But I’d like to take them aside and say come on out here, it is pretty nice….I’m having a hoot now….I think they get so used to the deference and the routine….I think many people stay too long.”

Retain but reform filibuster

“All of  my friends in the very progressive camp of the Democratic party…they forget there’s a 50-50 Senate,” she said. “They get so mad about the filibuster and about Joe Manchin. You only get to a majority in the U.S. Senate if you elect some moderates. There aren’t enough bright blue places to elect 55 or 53 Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warrens.”

 “….I was there when we stopped them defunding Planned Parenthood. It would have happened if it wasn’t for the filibuster….I was there….when because of the filibuster we were able to stop funding of the wall.

“…It sounds great to do away with the filibuster as long as we’re in charge,” she said. “If we are no longer in charge, it won’t feel so good. It will be helpless to stop anything.”

She said there is a need to reform the filibuster.  

“Somebody shouldn’t be able to call the cloakroom from a bar downtown and say ‘I object,’” McCaskill said. “They should have a standing, talking filibuster.”

McCaskill said voting rights should be carved out as an exception. Appointments are now an exception to the filibuster. She believes voting rights could legitimately be couched as such an essential in the democracy.

“If we do away with the filibuster, it will swing back and forth,” McCaskill said. “There will be no really big long-term change because it will become just whoever is in charge. I’m not sure that is what the Founding Fathers wanted.” 

 Integrity has been undermined

When people used to run for office, integrity was a pretty important value, McCaskill said. 

“People would believe what you said,” she said. “Donald Trump took that and turned it on its ear. He basically played to people’s cynicism and their sense of grievance.” 

The main thing that has changed with the advent of the internet, McCaskill said. She doesn’t know whether it was Trump, the internet or an unhealthy combination of the two. 

McCaskill said next Tuesday’s gubernatorial race in Virginia would be important because the Republican candidate is trying to have it both ways – courting Trump voters without embracing Trump. She said it would be interesting to see if he can thread that needle.

Mannies asked: With the media backdrop of the silos, did polarization of the media affect Missouri’s polarization? 

The Missouri Legislature, during the beginning of COVID-19, legalized brass knuckles, McCaskill said. 

“That moment was just a defining moment for me about how far we had fallen in terms of representation in Jefferson City prioritizing, I think, the issues most Missourians want them to care about,” she said. “The reason that is happening is because the Republicans did something very effectively, not just in Missouri, but in the country, and that is they weaponized cultural issues.”

In the past, McCaskill said in Jefferson City, there was a lot of time spent on the meat and potatoes of what state government is supposed to be doing and the services it’s supposed to be providing. 

“Republicans don’t talk about stuff anymore, they don’t really even try to legislate on that stuff anymore,” she said. “It’s all about cultural stuff.”

McCaskill said she wants Democrats to do a better job of bringing up cultural issues on their side of the equation, including abortion rights and gun control.

In regard to other cultural issues that could be helpful to Democrats, politically, McCaskill said the main one is voting. 

“They want to keep you from voting,” she said. “The freedom to participate in our democracy is a cultural issue. And I think it is one that could be really good for our party.” 

“The other thing is it’s going to motivate a lot of people to vote because what those guys haven’t figured out, that are pushing all this voter suppression stuff, Black and Brown Americans know what they’re doing,” she said. “They know they are trying to keep them from voting. And you know what is going to happen psychologically, it’s going to motivate them to vote more, I really do believe that.” 

McCaskill said she was surprised one of the Republican candidates for the Senate in Missouri  “isn’t trying to take a traditional Republican role…saying I believe in conservative values but not all this crazy talk.” McCaskill referred to the Trump-like rhetoric of the candidates, including Mark McCloskey, whom she referred to as that “crazy gunwaving St. Louis West End gun lawyer.”

McCaskill suggested that Democrats may have to wait a cycle or two to win statewide political office but added that the nomination of Eric Greitens, might open the door sooner.

Emily Cooper is a graduate student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she studies Professional Media and Media Management. You can follow her Twitter @coopscoopp

Dr. Donald M. Suggs has spent his lifetime accomplishing one achievement after another. He was the first in his family to complete high school. He is an oral surgeon-cum-civil rights advocate, art collector, and newspaper editor and publisher. 

As executive editor and publisher of The St. Louis American Suggs is chief producer and promoter of the 93-year-old weekly newspaper — not just keeping the American alive but also striving to adapt and change as it provides vital information for people throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area. All people. Blacks, whites and people of other ethnicities have come to trust the American to tell news and feature stories as seen through an African American lens.

Suggs is this year’s recipient of the Gateway Journalism Review’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He will be honored Oct. 27 at the magazine’s annual First Amendment Celebration.

An influencer of public thought, Suggs sits on more than two dozen boards of directors or trustees, ranging from the Barnes-Jewish Goldfarb School of Nursing (emeritus member) to the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis.

When he’s not shifting from Zoom meetings with his newspaper staff to those of the myriad of other organizations he supports, he’s writing pointed editorials and overseeing  page production for Wednesday afternoon deadlines.

The Suggs of today has come a long way from where he started. 

Donald Marthal Suggs was born Aug. 7,1932, to Morris and Elnora Suggs. His father was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and grew up in Kentucky. His mother was born in Montpelier, Mississippi.

The couple met and settled in East Chicago, Indiana, where Morris Suggs worked in a steel mill, their families having joined others who were part of the Great Migration from the South to the industrial centers in the North.

The couple had three children: Donald, Loretta and Walter.  

Though he grew up in the age of segregation, the young Suggs was raised in an integrated environment of the small, factory town. He attended public schools with the children of Eastern European and Hispanic immigrants. 

“I had a ‘mixed’ kind of upbringing,” he told GJR, adding that he learned to “code switch” at an early age. 

His father, he said, was a voracious reader.

“He was intellectually curious.”

Early influences

Growing up with Black newspapers such as The Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier in his home, the young Suggs followed his father’s lead and also developed an intellectual curiosity.

In high school, with his then-best friend, Donald Peters, Suggs started a newspaper — The Galloping Gossip. 

But it wasn’t until much later that he would return to that first passion for sharing news.

After high school he spent a year working while taking classes at an extension program of Indiana University. He went on to enroll full time at the university, earning his bachelor’s degree in dentistry and his doctorate of dental surgery — D.D.S. He was one of two Black students in his graduating class when he completed graduate school. 

It was while he was a student that he began learning about, and developing an appreciation for, fine art. During his high school years, he spent summers with his paternal grandparents in Chicago and visited places like the Art Institute. 

On visits to New York, he began exploring art even more. 

“New York was my North Star,” he said.

He came to St. Louis for an internship in 1957 and medical residency a year later at the historic Homer G. Phillips Hospital. 

Suggs chose Phillips — known as a training ground for a generation of Black physicians — over an internship in New York “because I thought Blacks were in charge.”

It was also in St. Louis that he turned his focus on the burgeoning civil rights movement. 

As he started on the activism trail, however, Suggs said initially he was viewed with suspicion. 

“I had two fights: one with our political opponents and also with those on the inside, who were suspicious that I was a plant,” because of his speech, mannerism and advanced education.   

During this time, he met two men who would become his closest friends for the coming decades.

The Joneses

Mike Jones was a sophomore at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, in 1968, when he met Suggs.

“Donald was a revolutionary oral surgeon,” Jones said. 

“He drove a Volkswagen and collected African art. He was leading the Poor People’s March.”

In fact, Suggs served as the St. Louis chairman of the Poor People’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The historic 1968 event was organized to call for economic justice in the United States. 

Under Suggs’ leadership, St. Louis sent busloads of people to Washington, D.C., joining more than 200,000 others from around the country who had come to hear from civil rights, labor and religious leaders. The march had been planned by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for the summer five years after he delivered his  “I have a dream” speech. But King was assassinated that April and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy carried on with the march. 

Jones said he was introduced to Suggs by a college friend during Jones’ days as a student-activist. 

“Take away the movement, Donald and I would have never met,” Jones said. 

“He had a profound effect on me. He nurtured my intellectual development.” 

Jones has served on the Missouri Board of Education, and was deputy mayor for development of the City of St. Louis and a senior policy advisor for the St. Louis County executive. Today he is a regular opinion writer for the American. 

“Without the American,” Jones said, “the Black community [in St. Louis] would be totally ignored.” In the American “there is a forum for Black perspective and Black voice.” 

Virvus Jones, who is not related to Mike, met Suggs when the young surgeon was balancing his dental practice, cultural pursuits and activism. 

“Doc always had an interest in history and politics,” Virvus Jones said. At Suggs’ home at the time in University City, “there were these African sculptures … He showed me how Picasso copied a lot of African art.”

A Vietnam war veteran and former St. Louis comptroller, Virus Jones is the father of St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones. Though Virvus Jones for years contributed to the American’s “Political Eye” opinion column, he stopped as his daughter, a former St. Louis treasurer and Missouri state representative, rose in politics. 

Suggs’ passion for art and politics grew along with his family. 

He is the father of Dawn Suggs who is the American’s digital and special projects director, Dina Suggs, who lives in New York and Donald Suggs Jr., who died in 2012, and grandfather of Delali Suggs-Akaffu. 

“I was attracted to the artistic community, [but] I didn’t have talent,” Suggs said. 

What he did have was connections, which led him to establish the African Continuum, an organization that brought to St. Louis what he called “serious, non-commercial artistic endeavors:” musicians, theater performances and fine artists.

He also helped establish the Alexander, Roth, Suggs Gallery of African Art, with locations in St. Louis and New York City.  

Running a newspaper

The St. Louis American was established by Nathan B. Young in 1928. N.A. Sweets sold advertising in the early days before taking over in the mid-1930s. Sweets went on to run the paper with his wife, Melba Sweets, until 1981. 

When the Sweets family stepped down, the paper was purchased by business partners Dr. Benjamin Davis, Clifton Gates and Gene Liss. 

After Davis died a few years later, Suggs joined the other partners. He eventually bought them out and assumed control of the paper in the mid-1980s. 

“He always loved the American because it was well written,” said Fred Sweets, son of N.A. and Melba, and a former photographer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“He is committed to quality journalism.” 

The American today

Yet another Jones — Kevin Jones — started out selling advertising for the American almost 30 years ago. Today he is the paper’s chief operating officer, in charge of advertising, circulation and supervision of the business staff. The American currently distributes about 50,000 papers each week through about 700 locations in Missouri and Illinois. 

Kevin Jones described Suggs as a visionary and extremely energetic. 

“He’s up at the gym when I’m still asleep,” Kevin Jones said. “It’s hard to work with him and not be that energetic. It rubs off.”

Kevin Jones said he believes one of the keys to Suggs’ success is that “he listens to people.”

“He’s always one to listen to ideas for changes. He takes my ideas and enhances them and takes them to the next level.” 
These days, Suggs is looking toward the future and working to ensure the American remains strong not just in print, but online and across social media platforms. 

The paper continues to be celebrated by its peers. 

Among recent honors, the American in September won 33 statewide awards in competition against newspapers with circulation of 5,000 or more, from Missouri Press Association in its 2021 Better Newspaper Contest. The awards include the first place award for general excellence, which the American has won seven times. 

But for Suggs, 89, the work goes on. 

“In the next two years,” he said, “the American has to be reset. To thrive we must be sustainable.” 

And he wants to continue the tradition of raising up talented journalists. 

“We want to have the kind of reputation that people will want to work here because it is a professional community newspaper. We want this to be a desirable destination.”

Linda Lockhart has worked as a reporter and editor at several news organizations around the Midwest, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Public Radio. From November 2020 through February 2021 she served as interim managing editor at The St. Louis American.

Ask Anna Crosslin, Gateway Journalism Review’s 2021 Freedom Fighter, about   Afghan resettlement, and she paints the “big picture” from decades of public service on immigration resettlement.  

The retired leader of the International Institute of St. Louis, St. Louis’ immigrant service and information hub, starts out like this: “One of the things I could look at… as we were beginning to discuss Afghan resettlement… I could look back at the Vietnamese resettlement, and also at the Bosnian resettlement programs, and better understand what some of the options might be in terms of how to be able to conduct resettlement….but also understand what some of the challenges would be.”

Crosslin is one of three people who will receive awards at GJR’s annual First Amendment celebration Oct. 27 at 7-8 p.m. featuring former senator and current NBC/MSNBC commentator Claire McCaskill.  

In addition to giving Crosslin the Freedom Fighter award, GJR will give St. Louis American publisher Donald Suggs its Lifetime Achievement award and environmental activist Kay Drey its Whistleblower award. Register here for the event.

Crosslin, who began her job at the Institute in 1978,  had many chances to observe matters relating to immigration, and refugees in particular.  “Each population has its challenges,” she said. “For the 1,000 Afghans resettling in St. Louis, the successful re-settling of large families in urban areas will be the  big challenge.”  

Crosslin, with the benefit of 42 years of leadership, points out,  “One hundred thousand Afghans is not such a huge number…it’s not that big when you look at our massive evacuation –in three waves, over three periods—of 800,000  Vietnamese.”

“Freedom Fighter….  I love it,” Crosslin said. “That’s quite a moniker.  I try.  I’m one of those people who tries. That would be accurate.”  

Nine years ago, on the occasion of Media Literacy Week, Gateway Media Literacy Partners invited Crosslin to write an essay on “Why media literacy is important.” Crosslin wrote ”…freedom is the one over-riding value that refugees believe is at the heart of America. In spite of this, they are sometimes shocked by the abundance of information and divergent opinions that are openly promoted in all forms of mass media.  The high level of verbal and written dissention on a multitude of issues—a result of our strong democratic values which translate into support for a free press and uncensored Internet – fascinates them.”

Asked  if the commentary she wrote then still resonated with her, she replied,

“Yep!  I would, however, change the last sentence….fascinates and sometimes frightens them.” 

Asked if “the fight” has changed over the years, Crosslin quickly responded,   “Oh, heavens…You know, with age has come an understanding that the process and the outcomes may be a lot slower, in terms of achieving goals, that is, than what I  would have initially wanted. What I thought I could achieve in my 20s and what I’ve been able to achieve in my 70s, well… there’s a measurable difference:  there’s not as much difference as I had hoped. “

On Crosslin’s body of work: “When you look back at your body of work, your body of work isn’t really just yours,  it’s a product of everybody who’s been working on whatever that goal happens to be over the same period.

Last year, on the announcement of her retirement, Crosslin in an interview with St. Louis Partnership said, “We all need to better understand that foreign-born growth is an important part of the solutions to our community’s economic and social challenges in our region and work together to achieve IISTL’s vision of a diverse, inclusive and thriving community.”

In her retirement, Crosslin cited how grateful she is to be a Missouri Historical Society board member where she can focus on  the Society’s  library and archives.  “I want to make sure that, not just the Institute’s work  but the history of immigrants in St. Louis. is preserved to the greatest extent.”  You know, “I’m always interested in the accurate story.” 

On receiving word of the GJR Freedom Fighter Award, Crosslin says she was both “shocked” and “flattered.”  “I see this as an acknowledgement, not just for what I’m doing, but for what the International Institute does in the community.   It’s about sometimes telling the stories that people don’t always like to hear.  Whether it’s because we’re a little too parochial, here, or because some of these countries are far away; or because we don’t necessarily think of individuals—residents of these countries—having the same values as we do.  Whatever the case may be, it just seems very removed to a lot of people, so part of my life-long mission is to try to help people understand that the shared values and behaviors of these people …well, they are us.  That’s what I’ve been fighting for.”

Jessica Brown is chair of this year’s First Amendment celebration and founder of the Gateway Media Literacy Partners.

For anyone spending the past few days in a cave, the person in the eye of the latest media storm is Donald Sterling, owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers.

Sterling ignited the race card, and the media suddenly have diverted their eyes from the Ukraine, a missing airplane and a South Korean ferry. Race is America’s trump card. It’s the nation’s third rail: touch it and you die.

Sterling’s racist comments recently were recorded by his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, and released by TMZ on Saturday. Three days later, NBA commissioner Adam Silver called for NBA owners to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, banned him for life from any association with the league and fined him $2.5 million.

Now Sterling’s remarks were inappropriate, racist, odious, vulgar and hurtful. But they were made in the privacy of his own home, and recorded without his knowledge or consent. So go ahead and throw the first stone. Everyone who has never said something stupid and hurtful in the privacy of his or her own home – everyone who would be comfortable having any and all of his or her utterances broadcast publically in this new-tech world – please stand up.

A truly strange assortment of voices already has been heard on this subject – many speaking out against sanctions against Sterling – and more likely will hit blogs, tweets, newspapers and radio waves in coming days. Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, Libertarians, members of the American Civil Liberties Union from the Skokie-march days and a number of First Amendment free-speech advocates all have offered their commentaries. What strange bedfellows they are.

The public and members of the media should speak out against, and chastise, a public figure’s insensitive, unethical remarks, even though such remarks were made in private. But do remarks uttered in private justify Silver leveling such a punishment?

As former African-American NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote earlier this week: “Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizens’ privacy in such an un-American way?”

Jeff Jacoby, writing recently in the Boston Globe, pointed out it’s illegal in California to secretly record a private conversation. In a free society, he wrote, “private lives and private thoughts aren’t supposed to be everyone’s business.” But, as Jacoby adds, such intrusions, made possible by modern technology, are eroding this value, and the presumption that what people say in their personal lives will stay personal, is all but gone.

In the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, William O. Douglas wrote about a “penumbra” right of privacy. Justices Hugo Black and Potter Stewart countered that the Constitution contains no such right.

Today, some notable First Amendment activists who usually side with Douglas on issues of privacy are comfortable supporting the commissioner’s punitive sanctions against Sterling, even though such sanctions would not have been leveled had his privacy not been violated.

Privacy, new technology and the U.S. race card; what a toxic brew. It’s regrettable Silver has drunk so deeply from this draught.

Two wrongs were made: Sterling said something ugly, and these comments were broadcast by the media. But two wrongs don’t mean professional basketball’s commissioner was right in leveling sanctions against the Clippers’ owner. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

When the ends are seen to justify the means, media ethics and media law both suffer. And race once again is able to rear its ugly head.

Many people now rely on the Web to get results on election nights. Such Web-savvy folks likely were frustrated with St. Louis’ local TV election-night website coverage.

Viewers would have been unable to find anything on KSDK Channel 5’s website. There was no reference to the election on the station’s main page. A search provided unrelated stories and election results from March 19. A search just for “today” uncovered nothing.

Channel 4’s main page had a big banner, making it easy to get to election results. Unfortunately, there were missing races on the website. The two races Channel 2 referred to, Kirkwood and Ferguson-Florissant, were not listed.

Channel 2’s main page also made it easy to get to results with the large banner at the top. But once the page was accessed, it loaded very slowly.

It’s hoped the TV stations’ Web departments will get their acts together.

Speaking of websites

Whoever designed Channel 5’s new website needs a lesson in what works for ordinary people. It is hard to figure out. Finding stories is nearly impossible. The organization is odd.

At 2:30 p.m. April 9, the top items included:

• A vigil planned in Effingham for a Fort Hood victim.
• A promo for Mike Bush’s “Making a Difference” series.
• News that Missouri Medicaid may restore adult dental care.
• A junk food study.
• Where NFL Pro Bowls will be played.
• A promo for a show about surviving tornadoes.

Below that section is one called “Headlines.” The very first of 12 items was that St. Louis was picked for a hot-dog-eating contest. Next to it, a contest to win my mortgage for a year. By that item was one asking if Albert Pujols can break the all-time home-run record.

Headlines? This was on the same day 20 people had been stabbed at a Pennsylvania high school. Readers had to be lucky to even find that story. It scrolled by in the “featured video” section halfway down the page (requires scrolling). And it was eight of 10. What was the No. 1 featured video on KSDK’s page? “Bella Twins don’t know each other’s favorite apps”:

“Twin models and professional wrestlers, the Bella Twins, can finish each other’s sentences, but do they know each other’s favorite apps?”

Someone there needs to rethink the page, because Channel 5 may bill itself “where the news come first” – but not on the Web, where many people turn to today. There, it is hard to even find the news. (See http://www.ksdk.com.)

Lampkin shines

Channel 5 has a real winner in their newest meteorologist, Chester Lampkin. The St. Louis native has been on the air since February 2013, and he just shines. He has the ability to be serious when the weather is bad and light when the weather is good. He is an excellent conversationalist with all of the anchors. And he can adapt well to whatever might happen on set, such as the wrong graphic showing up on screen. No matter what ad lib an anchor tosses to him, he handles it with style. He displays the kind of approachable personality many people can relate to as they watch him on television. Lampkin has quite a future. Unless he wants to stay in his hometown, he will have his pick of jobs in the future, whether it is a larger market or the Weather Channel. Of the many talented weather people in St. Louis, he is already one of the best.

KMOV weathers the storm nicely

Channel 4 has an often breathless style of news, in which almost every story appears to be vital to viewers. The stories and associated teases are read in an overly dramatic way, and the writing sensationalistic. So that is why the Channel 4 weather department gets kudos for its performance during recent bouts of severe weather. They did not overhype the situation, even as storms became severe. They were professional in their approach – and, while concerned about people’s safety, never tried to panic the audience. When tornado warnings were issued, they did their best to track where it might be and reported it with appropriate urgency. The responsible way they handled the storms added immense credibility to their weather folks. The news department should take notice.