If you have solid tips, news or documents on potential ethical violations or abuses of power, we want to know. Send us your suggestions. 
Unfortunately I believe that we are limited in what we can focus on. I think that if we proceed with the partisan sideshow of prosecuting Bush admin. officials, healthcare will get lost in the brouhaha.
The Washington Post's permanent investigative unit was set up in 1982 under Bob Woodward.
Newspaper Obtains Detroit Mayor's Text Messages
The Detroit Free Press reports today that it has obtained text messages showing that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff lied about their relationship when they testified in a police whistle-blower trial last summer.
The newspaper examined nearly 14,000 text messages on a pager the city issued to the chief of staff, Christine Beatty. While the e-mails sent to and from public officials have figured in many investigations around the country, it is much more rare for text messages from pagers or cell phones to become public. The Detroit case is somewhat unusual, because the system used by Beatty and the mayor would store messages much longer than text messages sent via cell phone, the Associated Press reports.
Kilpatrick and chief of staff Christine Beatty denied during testimony in August that they had a sexual relationship. But the text messages show them engaged in romantic banter as well as planning and recounting sexual liaisons. The messages are also at odds with the pair's trial testimony that they did not fire Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown in 2003, an ouster that led him to sue. The text messages show Beatty recalling the "decision that we made to fire Gary Brown."
By The Editors |
January 25, 2008; 2:45 PM ET
Previous: Dulles Rail Doubts |
Next: Liability for D.C. Tax Scandal?
Posted by: PQ | January 25, 2008 4:37 PM
Responding to PQ's comment: Here at the Post's Investigations blog we occasionally point our readers to projects published or broadcast by other news organizations. We thought the Detroit case was unusually interesting.
--Lawrence Roberts, investigations editor.
Posted by: Lawrence Roberts | January 25, 2008 5:14 PM
Yeah, but (1) posting the story under "Washington Post Investigations" - where most, if not all, of the postings ARE about the WaPo's own investigations - and then, especially, (2) under the header "Newspaper Obtains Detroit Mayor's Text Messages," really makes it sound like the "Newspaper" in question was the WaPo.
A better headline would be "Detroit Paper Obtains...." I understand space constraints and all (I'm a writer myself), but from the reader's perspective, it is misleadingly presented. I just thought you should know that.
Posted by: PQ | January 26, 2008 11:39 AM
Post a Comment
We encourage users to analyze, comment on and even challenge washingtonpost.com's articles, blogs, reviews and multimedia features.
User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions.
How is this a Washington Post investigation? It's the Detroit Free Press doing the investigation. Does reporting that some other paper is doing an investigation make it a WaPo investigation?
Lazy. Sad.