We didn’t have to wait long to see how The World would handle the news about Sheriff Jackson being cleared of corruption. As everyone knows, an email to the paper from Kevin Stufflebean, unreleased to the public but selectively quoted from, prompted an investigation by the State Attorney General. Given the vagueness and wide sweeping tone of the accusations many people including me felt the paper was errant in even reporting the accusations without some evidence. The Attorney General, also not provided any evidence, found the accusations to be baseless but lack of evidence didn’t stop the paper from giving Stufflebean a platform to vent his anger towards his perceived enemies.

The paper penned an editorial today (better written than usual) likening the commissioner to the boy who cried wolf. The paper throws Stufflebean to the wolves but doesn’t own up to its own responsibility in this entertaining but ridiculous event.

Last month, stinging from a weak finish in the May primary, Stufflebean unleashed a batch of invective, including an unsupported accusation of corruption in the sheriff’s office. He evidently didn’t realize such an allegation would justify an investigation by the state attorney general, which the sheriff solemnly requested.

Not surprisingly, the investigation found nothing. Stufflebean had sound and fury, but no evidence.

“Not surprisingly”, they say, like they knew it all along. If that is true, if they knew the accusations were baseless, then the fact they published the story at all reveals a terrible lack of journalistic ethics. Of course they should have known it all along. How many commissioners report corruption to a paper rather than a district attorney or a police department?

That a sitting commissioner might send a late night venom filled rant to a newspaper about his political enemies is news, sure. Spelling out the accusations without revealing the source document, without any evidence… That is not news, that is sensationalism and at the expense of a lot of people who, had the paper not cooperated with Stufflebean, had they not enabled his childish behavior, would not have had to be bothered.

The paper owes the citizens an apology. Stufflebean isn’t alone in losing credibility over this chapter in Coos County politics.