Wilbert Rideau The Real Story

           The Society of Professional Journalists more than one hundred years ago. Today it has nearly 10,000 members. Its website says that SPJ is “the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization, dedicated to encouraging the free practice of journalism and stimulating high standards of ethical behavior.” The group has its own Code of Ethics whose Preamble provides: “Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalists is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Members share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society’s principles and standards of practice.”

            Wilbert Rideau is a famed “prison journalist.” He was the recipient of the 1979 George Polk Award, the 1979 ABA Silver Gavel Award, and a co-recipient of the 1979 Robert F. Kennedy Award for Specialized Journalism. During his 44-year incarceration in the Louisiana prison system and while editor of the prison publication The Angolite, Rideau was hailed by The New York Times, ABC’s Ted Koppel, and a score of other media professionals as the leader not only in “prison journalism” but a stalwart in the journalism world in general. A significant portion of that reputation was created and nurtured by lies and misrepresentations, much which have been documented by this website (here and here and here).

            On April 27, 2010 Rideau released his “prison memoir” titled In The Place of Justice (Random House 2010). Although the memoir was hailed as an “extraordinary book” by Ted Koppel and favorably reviewed on its released date by Associated Press reporter Mary Foster, it is actually a study in contradictions and factual errors with stories and scenes that violate SPJ’s Code of Ethics. Even before the release of the memoir, Rideau engaged in admitted behavior as a “famed prison journalist” which also violated SPJ’s Code of Ethics. I will list these “ethical violations” below:

TEST THE ACCURACY OF INFORMATION FROM ALL SOURCES AND EXERCISE CARE TO AVOID INADVERTENT ERROR.

            On pages 164-65 in his memoir, Rideau describes an incident concerning an article titled “Religion in Prison” which appeared in the 1981 January/February edition of The Angolite. In that article Rideau criticized the Louisiana Catholic Church for its lack of support of those imprisoned. He said the article so offended the Bishop of the Baton Rouge Catholic Diocese that he took “his complaint and political clout to Governor Edwards, but [Corrections Secretary] Phelps stood firm” against the pressure. Rideau identified bishop as the “Very Reverend John Sullivan” who was “later discovered to have been a not-so-reverend pedophile.”

            The “error” in that story is that Rideau named the wrong bishop. The bishop over the Baton Rouge Catholic Diocese in 1981 was Joseph Sullivan. In 1981 a bishop named “John Joseph Sullivan” was over the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese. A simple Google search would have led to Bishop John Joseph Sullivan’s Wikipedia profile. In effect, this respected bishop was called a “not-so-reverend pedophile” by Rideau when, in fact, he was not.

            Baton Rouge Catholic Diocese Bishop Joseph Sullivan died in 1982. Years after the bishop’s death two lawsuits were filed against the diocese alleging sexual abuse against the late bishop. Those lawsuits were settled out of court. No legal or factual finding was ever made that Bishop Joseph Sullivan was in fact a “not-so-reverend pedophile.”

            Further, Rideau named the wrong governor in office in 1981. Edwin Edwards was not the governor, Dave Treen was. As a matter of fact, Dave Treen had been governor of Louisiana one year at the time the bishop allegedly took “his complaint and political clout” to the governor’s office about The Angolite article. To compound this error, Rideau on the same page (165) where he wrongly identified Edwin Edwards as the governor to whom the bishop complained said Phelps was fired in “September 1981” by “Republican governor Dave Treen, who’d assumed power the year before.”

            It may be said that the Edwards/Treen error and the error of naming of the wrong Catholic bishop were “inadvertent.” But when a journalist, especially one who has repeatedly promoted his “award-winning” stature in every media venue possible, calls a Catholic bishop a “not-so-reverend pedophile,” particularly in today’s media climate about the church’s pedophilia controversy, he had better “exercise care” to correctly identify that bishop.

            Further, a journalist’s ethical responsibility to “test the accuracy of information from all sources” demands that a deceased Catholic bishop not be factually referred to as a “not-so-reverend pedophile” based solely on two lawsuits settled after his death by the diocese. At best, the settled lawsuits “implied” that Bishop Joseph Sullivan was a “pedophile.” The settled lawsuits did not make that accusation a proven fact as Rideau presented it in his memoir.  

AVOID CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, REAL OR PERCEIVED.

            Margery Hicks was a member of the Louisiana Board of Pardons between 1984 and 1988. The pardon board is a subdivision under the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, and as such, it is part of a “law enforcement agency.” All records, including policies and procedures governing agency investigations and operations, are confidential. It is a violation of the law for any member of the pardon board to discuss or share information about clemency matters brought before the board, except information presented at public hearings.

            As a matter of internal working policy, all staff members of The Angolite were under strict instruction not to use our positions to establish “personal” relationships with members of either the Louisiana pardon board or parole board because our own cases would be heard and decided by those boards. Our relationship, if any, with any of those board members was to be strictly professional and pertain solely to any specific story about those boards by the prison magazine. Any contact with members of those boards had to be approved by the The Angolite supervisor with the stated purpose for the contact.

            On page 174 of his memoir, Rideau described his relationship with Margery Hicks as follows: “Hicks stopped by The Angolite whenever she came to the prison, and I gradually got to know this strong, well-educated, brassy redhead. She had retired from the juvenile corrections system and became a member of the Scotlandville Area Advisory Council, a powerful black political group in Baton Rouge. She had been given the pardon board appointment as part of Edward’s payoff to her political group for their support of his reelection. As time passed and our friendship grew, she took me into her confidence and provided me with a behind-the-scenes view into the workings of the board that would destroy all my remaining illusions about its fairness.”

            Accepting that these meetings in The Angolite office took place, they occurred between December 1986 and March 1988. I left The Angolite in November 1986 after I exposed a massive pardons-selling enterprise at the prison which was controlled by pardon board chairman Howard Marsellus. Hicks did not come to The Angolite office before November 1986, and if she went to the office after November 1986 to meet with Rideau, those meetings had to be approved by ether Corrections Secretary Phelps or Angola Warden Hilton J. Butler. It is highly unlikely that such private meetings between the pardon board member and the convict editor would have been officially approved in the shadows of the ongoing federal and state investigations into Marsellus’ criminal network.

            But given the vast nature of the corruption at the prison during Edwards’ third term in office, and in particular the official tolerance that Phelps and Butler had for corruption and their relationship with Rideau, it is conceivable that the Hicks/Rideau meetings in The Angolite may have occurred between December 1986 and March 1988. And if they did and the “friendship” exchanges occurred between them as described by Rideau, Hicks was violating state law by divulging “confidential” information about the investigative practices and procedures of the pardon board to the convict editor and Rideau was violating the internal working instructions of the prison publication by establishing a “friendship” with Hicks.

            Based solely on what Rideau said about his relationship with Hicks, the “award-winning prison journalist” violated SPJ’s ethics prohibition to “avoid conflicts of interest, either real or perceived.”

REFUSE GIFTS, FAVORS, FEES, FREE TRAVEL, SPECIAL TREATMENT, AND SHUN SECONDARY EMPLOYMENT, POLITICA INVOLVEMENT, PUBLIC OFFICE AND SERVICE IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS IF THEY COMPROMISE JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY.

            On page 194 of his memoir, Rideau described a scene that took place on March 10, 1988 at Corrections Headquarters in Baton Rouge. The convict editor was at headquarters to cover the retirement party of Secretary Phelps. He went to the office of parole board chairwoman Dorothy “Dot” Henderson who, like Phelps, was on her way out of office because she had not been re-appointed to the parole board by incoming Gov. Buddy Roemer. While Rideau and Henderson were chatting in her office, the convict editor said prominent Baton Rouge attorney Nathan Fisher walked in “to see Henderson about clemency for a client.” It must be pointed out here that a parole board member has nothing to do with “clemency” decisions handed down by the pardon board. It would have violated the state’s Code of Governmental Ethics for Henderson to use her position as parole board chairwoman to secure favorable clemency consideration for a client of Nathan Fisher.

            But, according to Rideau, Henderson “made a phone call” and told Fisher “it was done,” implying that the parole board chairwoman had gotten Gov. Edwards to grant clemency relief to Fisher’s client since the governor was the only person with the power to grant such relief.

            Rideau was impressed by Henderson’s unethical, if not illegal, demonstration of power with Gov. Edwards. “Hell, I didn’t know you had that kind of power,” he said. “So what are you gonna do for me?”

            Henderson reportedly said she did not have enough “power” to take care of the convict editor. Rideau then asked Henderson if she could get clemency granted to two other convicted killers named Louis “Pulpwood” Ducre and Jack Lathers. The famed prison journalist wrote that “within a few minutes and after two phone calls, the life sentences of the two men had been commuted, and they would be freed within a day or so.”

            Rideau’s memoir contains a photo of him and Henderson dated March 10, 1988 with the following caption: “My friend ‘Dot’ Henderson arranged freedom for two rehabilitated lifers as a farewell gift to me as her tenure as Louisiana parole board chairwoman ended.”

            By his own account, Rideau first violated the SPJ tenet against journalists using their position to seek “favors” or “special treatment” for themselves by asking Henderson to help him with his clemency effort and second by asking her to use her “power” to secure clemency for two other killers as a “gift” to him.

            And to add insult to injury, the famed prison journalist touts this “gift” secured through official corruption as providing justice for “two rehabilitated lifers.”

BE ACCOUNTABLE BY ABIDING BY THE SAME HIGH STANDARDS TO WHICH JOURNALISTS HOLD OTHERS.

            Rideau repeatedly and relentlessly used his position as an “award winning” editor to enlist the support of other journalists, researchers, and criminal justice professionals in his freedom efforts. The efforts created all sorts of massive conflicts of interest.

            For example, Michael Fumento in a June 11, 2010 piece for Forbes.com titled “Cold Blooded Murderers Can Still Make a Killing” described such a conflict 22 years ago. In 1988 Fumento was working on an AIDS project while with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Because Rideau had written extensively on prison issues, Fumento contacted Rideau to enlist his support in understanding the problem of AIDS in prison. “Soon enough he tried enrolling me in the “Free Rideau!’ campaign. Upon examining his background, though, I saw the same ridiculous lies and self-pity you’ve seen [in this article]. I had no trouble turning him down and felt sick I had ever been friendly with him.”

            Rideau’s “ridiculous lies” litter the public landscape for any researcher to find just as Fumento did.

NEVER PLAGIARIZE

            S.E. Van Bramer, Widener University (1995) defined the literary term “plagiarize” as “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own: use (a created production) without crediting the source viz to commit literary theft: to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”

            In a previous post on this site, I wrote about an episode where Rideau committed literary theft and plagiarism by using one of my award-winning articles in a criminal justice textbook without giving me attribution as its author.

            Days before Corrections Secretary Phelps left office in March 1988, Rideau got the corrections secretary to sign a “memo” written on The Angolite stationery granting the convict editor the right  to sell, market or use any articles, photos, or materials which had appeared in the magazine during Rideau’s tenure as its editor. Clearly, Phelps did not have any legal or ethical authority to give the famed prison journalist the right to sell or market someone else’s work product for his own benefit. But the fact that Rideau sought, and secured, the “permission” to market and sell other people’s work product was nothing short of literary theft by itself.

            In 1989 a Louisiana criminal justice professor named Burk Foster, along with Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg (The Angolite co-editor who replaced me), released a criminal justice textbook titled The Wall is Strong. The textbook was an anthology of criminal justice articles that appeared in The Angolite, other state penal publications, and several free world newspapers. Rideau and Wikberg compiled the articles from The Angolite which appeared in the textbook.

            Four of my articles appeared in the textbook without my byline. All other articles in the textbook carried the bylines on the respective authors. One of my articles, “A Prison Tragedy,” appeared in The Angolite in 1979 under carried my byline. I received the 1980 Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for the article.

            When I learned that my literary work  had been used in The Wall Is Strong without my permission and attribution to me, I filed a lawsuit against Burk Foster and Rideau in federal court. I settled the lawsuit against Foster after he gave me a written apology and agreed to remove my four articles from the next printing of the textbook.

            Rideau initially denied that any of the articles had been written by me, but after I produced evidence that the “A Prison Tragedy” article appeared in The Angolite with my byline and I had won the Silver Gavel for it, Rideau conceded I had written that article, although he still refused to credit me with the other three articles.

            In a October 26, 1989 article written by Mark Lambert (“Prison Editor Says an Error Left Credit Off”) that appeared in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, Rideau said the use of “A Prison Tragedy” without attribution was an “innocent mistake” that “slipped through the cracks” in the selection process.

            First, Rideau methodically lied to Lambert because there’s no way an Angolite article carrying my byline could have innocently “slipped through the cracks” in the selection process. “A Prison Tragedy” was one of the most prominent, celebrated articles that appeared in the prison publication and Rideau damn well knew who wrote it when he sent it to Burk Foster.

            Second, Rideau’s comments to Lambert implied that he had a right to include the article for publication in The Wall Is Strong without my permission. This was the same defense he employed, and saw rejected, in federal court—that the Phelps “memo” granted convict editor exclusive rights to use my work in any manner he saw fit without my securing my permission or giving me credit for it.

            That is literary theft by any definition and plagiarism by Van Bramer’s definition.

CONCLUSON

            Rideau’s journalists friends and supporters, and in particular those who have reviewed In The Place of Justice, have not noted these clear ethical violations.

            Why?

            Particularly since an ethical tenet of SPJ provides: JOURNALISTS SHOULD EXPOSE UNETHICAL PRACTICES OF [OTHER] JOURNALISTS AND THE NEWS MEDIA.

            Again, why hasn’t Ted Koppel and The New York Times exposed Rideau’s ethical lapses: The Margery Hicks friendship; the “Dot” Henderson “gift;” conflicts of interest like the Michael Fumento incident; or the literary theft/plagiarism of my articles in The Wall Is Strong?

            The news media may not ask these hard questions of Wilbert Rideau, but I will.