Jessica McBride, Ed Flynn, the former Milwaukee Police Chief — what’s the truth? What are the facts about Jessica McBride and former Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn?
- Jessica McBride is a highly respected, national award-winning journalist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is an award-winning University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee journalism teacher. Read her bio and accomplishments here.
These are the facts.
Jessica McBride Did Not Have an Affair With Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn During the Reporting of a Milwaukee Magazine or Any News Story; This was Debunked and Is False
- It was proven: Journalist Jessica McBride did not have an affair or relationship with Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn during the writing or reporting of a Milwaukee magazine or any story. The accusation is categorically false, was raised by a competitor known for a misleading gossip column and has been completely disproven.
- Jessica McBride and Ed Flynn did not become involved while McBride was working on a “lengthy article for the magazine’s May issue.” Any implication or reporting otherwise is false was disproven.
Jessica McBride, Ed Flynn, Brocach’s Irish Pub
- Jessica McBride and Ed Flynn never became involved after an “interview” at Brocach Irish Pub and Restaurant on Water St., as Dan Bice, who is known for his misleading gossip columns, falsely claimed. Jessica McBride never interviewed Ed Flynn at Brocach’s Irish Pub and Restaurant. This is categorically false. She was also in no position to influence coverage of him at Brocach’s or thereafter, as she was a teacher, not a journalist at that time.
- Milwaukee Magazine Editor Bruce Murphy, a veteran and respected journalist and editor, confirmed that Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Bice “went ahead and wrote an innuendo-laden story…Bice ignored information proving the contrary, and failed to do due diligence to establish the facts.”
- Wrote Murphy: “The real shame falls on Bice and his editors.”
- Murphy noted: “Jessica had just one face-to-face interview with Flynn, for six hours in December, with a police lieutenant and the department’s communications director, Anne E. Schwartz, present the entire time.“
- Murphy wrote about Bice’s false use of the word “interview” to describe the Brocach’s meeting: “Worse, he used the loaded word ‘interview’ to describe a chat between McBride and Flynn nearly three months after the story was finished.” There was no interview. This was fabricated by Bice.
- “I told Bice that McBride turned in her feature in January, but he declined to include that in his story,” Murphy wrote.
Jessica McBride Did Not Violate Journalism Ethics When Writing About Ed Flynn; She Is Highly Regarded for Her Journalism Ethics
- Jessica McBride was a teacher (not a “professor” per Reddit) with no journalistic ethical conflict.
- Jessica McBride is highly regarded for her journalistic ethics. She did not violate journalistic ethics.
- Jessica McBride has never taught ethics courses at UW-Milwaukee.
Dan Bice Factual Errors & False ‘Affair’ Implications About Jessica McBride, Ed Flynn
- Dan Bice, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter and journalist, committed serious factual errors when writing about McBride.
- It should be noted that McBride was a prominent critic of the newspaper’s bias at that time. She has repeatedly criticized Dan Bice’s reporting. Dan Bice is well-known in Wisconsin for omitting important facts when he sensationalizes stories. See as examples: His misleading coverage of Jennifer Dorow’s teenage son, and his botching of the Ruben Houston story.
- Milwaukee Magazine Editor Bruce Murphy said he “stood by McBride’s magazine piece, suggesting it was tougher than anything written about the chief.”
- Bice unethically asked journalistic ethics professors to weigh in on the falsehood he wrote.
- Journalist Daniel Bice also selectively and dishonestly edited an unverified letter to change the context, removing a line in which McBride wrote that she did not have romantic feelings for Ed Flynn.
- It was true, as Bice wrote, that Ed Flynn’s wife “did not move to Milwaukee when Flynn took the job.”
- Dan Bice falsely painted McBride’s Milwaukee Magazine story as “glowing.” In reality, Milwaukee Magazine Editor Bruce Murphy noted that the story was tough, “the reporting was terrific.” He outlined a number of passages negative to Flynn included by McBride in the story, including on-the-record quotes calling him an “itinerant chief” and “carpetbagger” and noting that he was unable to name any streets in the area at a community meeting.
- Murphy added: “During the editing process, Jessica pushed me to include a couple negative quotes, which I vetoed as unnecessary because others in the story essentially made the same point.”
In summation, it is not true that Jessica McBride violated journalistic ethics or had an affair or relationship with then Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn during the writing or reporting of any news story, including for Milwaukee Magazine. She did not. Facts matter.
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