July 8-14, 2004

city beat

Editing the Feds

TAKING NOTES: bill Kent writes comments on the DA's press release.

A local novelist and writing coach critiques the juicy press release promoting the federal indictments.
Read excerpts from the D.A.'s press release.

by Bill Kent

Editor's note: When City Paper read the U.S. District Attorney's official June 29 press release announcing indictments from the federal probe, we were taken aback by the narrative flow, the gripping details and the stylized language. The release, which was written by Rich Manieri in public affairs and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer, is a departure from the D.A.'s typical announcements, which tend to be dry and to the point. Manieri and Zauzmer wrote a compelling story, but we thought it could have used a little tweaking. To that end, we asked veteran reporter and novelist Bill Kent to edit the release and offer tips on how the pair can do an even better job next time.

TO: Rich Manieri and Robert Zauzmer

FROM: Bill Kent, mystery novelist and journalist, Philadelphia

Rich and Bob, we haven't met. My editor at City Paper gave me a copy of the six-page press release your office sent to all the media around Philadelphia at the end of last month, about the FBI finally dropping like a ton of bricks on lawyer Ronald White and former city treasurer Corey Kemp, and ten others. City Paper wanted to know what I thought of this release because I've been a journalist for more than 25 years. I've taught journalism at Temple and Rutgers. I am also a mystery novelist and teach novel writing at Penn.

Your release did what you intended it to do. Your writing was clear, your use of dialogue was effective and in the end, you told a good story. You commanded a broad audience — the release got the media in this city (and up and down the East Coast) to say that the federal Department of Justice has determined that White and Kemp are bunch of scheming, thieving, greedy, large-living, self-aggrandizing, trash-talking City Hall sleazebags without

whom we would all be better off.

Right on the first page (which, seasoned journalists know, is the only page that will get a full reading), are two terrific sound bites from U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan.

Terrific Sound Bite No. 1: "This is an indictment not only of the defendants but of a "pay-to-play' culture that can only breed corruption."

We have to thank the late Ronald Reagan for showing us that the great thing about sound bites is that they can sound great and not mean a thing — at the same time!

Sound Bite No. 1 refers to the Mayor John Street's pay-to-play speech but doesn't mention him by name — very clever! It's a rallying cry to anyone who was offended by the fact that, unfortunately or not, pay-to-play has kept Philadelphia political machines chugging along since the colonial era, as well as the larger machines of our beloved commonwealth, not to mention our federal government. But whatever happens in federal court to Ronald White, Corey Kemp and the rest of these people won't make it go away.

Terrific Sound Bite No. 2: "In effect, the public trust was being bought and sold."

This is so … Ciceronian! And it's plain wrong. You should always use cliches sparingly — and make sure that you understand what they mean. In this case, the very nature of trust, public or otherwise, is that it can't be bought or sold. You can buy a Philadelphia election with street money. You can buy loyalty by giving people decent jobs. But trust? That's something people give of their own free will.

I have tended to trust the writers at the U.S. Attorney's Office over the years because I got to know a few of the staff, who, hoping to be the next John Grisham or Lisa Scottoline, have taken my novel writing courses at Penn.

But, given the low blows that I see in this press release, it's going to be hard to for me as a reader to trust the strength of the bureau's case.

Low Blow No. 1, also on page one: You use the word "benefits" to describe the free sports tickets, private jet transportation, limo rides, restaurant meals, free work on a vacation home, easy bank loans and other gifts, perks, freebies, gratuities and lagniappes that White tossed to Kemp.

No doubt a law or code of conduct outlines what municipal employees are permitted to receive. Rich and Bob, don't assume that your readers know the laws — we're never told if Kemp violated any codes. What we are told is that Kemp lived large, and that's supposed to make him a figure of envy, especially when you mention on page two that he got "100 percent financing on his house at a time that Kemp had extremely poor credit."

It doesn't matter how much Kemp could borrow: What we have here is character assassination, an insult that comes close to libel. If this was a fictional short story, you could damage your own characters all you want. But your release is a work of narrative nonfiction. Having "poor credit" is a matter of opinion, and we're never told whose opinion we're getting here. You should credit a source for that kind of statement. Credit reports are notoriously inaccurate. What you want to say is that it smells bad for a public official — with or without a spotty credit history — to accept a loan from a bank that is seeking his approval for doing business with the city.

Next, you describe Janice Renee Knight as a woman who controls a printing company that got city business — and is a "paramour" of Ronald White. Her role isn't fully developed in the press release, so as a reader, I'm not sure if you have proof of a sexual relationship. Her relationship with White would have been very dramatic, if you'd have spent more time on them. I'd like to see more details, more color.

One more low blow before I quit, and it's a doozy. In the same way you gave us sound bites from the U.S. Attorney, you also supply quotes from conversations between White and Kemp.

On page three, White says, "Either you down or you ain't with it." Kemp replies, "Right, cause if they don't, if they ain't with us they ain't gonna get nothing."

Then later on the page, White allegedly talks to a fundraiser at a time before the mayor was re-elected. "The whole thing, man, you know I don't care about none of this s---, man, none of this politics s--- means nothing to me. What we want to do is, we business people, we want to protect our f---ing investment, and we need to talk about how we gonna do that … if John loses."

You presented these quotes as an example of White and Kemp's venality. But we were not told the context in which these statements were made.

Though I'm not a lawyer, I picked up a little bit of courtroom procedures because, as a mystery writer, fiction becomes much more believable when you are reasonably accurate with details and procedures. A defense lawyer will tell you that giving these quotes to the media is a very low blow because a judge has not yet decided if these and other transcripts can be admitted as evidence.

Which means that readers, as well as the accused and their lawyers, have no way of knowing, at this point, if these transcripts are accurate, and if they were taken from recordings that actually exist.

I am not suggesting that either of you or anyone in the U.S. Attorney's Philadelphia office would fake these quotes. But the reason that quotes like this should be withheld from the media is to protect the defendants, and the public, from even the possibility of tainted, corrupted or fabricated evidence. By giving these quotes to the media, they become a matter of record, regardless of what was actually said. People read them and make conclusions based on how the words have been transcribed.

When I teach novel writing, I tell my students that written dialogue can never be a transcript of actual speech, because most people do not speak grammatically. We hesitate, we have verbal tics, we rarely complete our sentences.

If a novelist includes dialect constructions, obscure slang, pauses, the verbal tics — even if this is the kind of speech your character might typically say — a reader might have to stop and try to piece it together, and thus, get the wrong impression of who the character is and what the novelist wants him to say.

Why is it that these men are quoted as saying "nothing" and, most damagingly for White, "fucking," but "gonna" instead of "going to"?

These distinctions may be subtle, but they have an aggregate effect: White and Kemp come off like crude, ignorant fools making a lame effort at sounding in charge.

In other words, these quotes are not evidence. They are, at best, dialect fragments of guys talking trash. And trash talk, even when it is crude, offensive, self-aggrandizing or just plain wrong, is not against the law. It is, in fact, protected under the First Amendment.

I've never met White, Kemp or any of the defendants. I also want to emphasize that I have a great deal of respect for the bureau and its efforts, not just here but throughout this country.

Overall, the press release was a quick, entertaining read. But, I must ask if you believe that a press release filled with insults, low blows and cheap shots will make it any easier for prosecutors to get a conviction in a city that has not yet shaken off its prejudice against federal law enforcement.

Wynnewood-based Bill Kent is a Philadelphia-based journalist and novelist who has written for more than 40 regional and national publications including The New York Times. He is the author of several books including Under the Boardwalk, Down by the Sea and On a Blanket With My Baby. He is currently teaching at Penn.

Read excerpts from the D.A.'s press release.