Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Photo courtesy of here.

As first announced by reporter Bill Sloat’s Daily Bellwether blog, last Saturday marked the debut of Phil Heimlich’s radio talk show. As Beacon readers know (perhaps too well), we have a special fascination with Phil, a once-influential public official whose fall from power was hard and fast.

So we’ve been wondering when and where he’d surface next. Faced with mowing my lawn, I decided it was more urgent to spend an hour listening to “Hard Truths,” which is the name of Heimlich’s new venture in the world of so-called “conservative Christian” broadcasting.

Knowing Heimlich, I figured something unpredictable was bound to happen and the May 3rd “Hard Truths” premiere did not disappoint. In fact, the very first guest was, surprise surprise, Bill Sloat. Did he somehow forgot to mention that in his April 30th Bellwether plug for Heimlich’s show or was he a last-minute booking? But I’m getting ahead of myself.

For the past few weeks, the only thing Sloat has been writing about on The Bellwether is the Marc Dann mess. It started with his April 13 critique in which Sloat took The Enquirer to task for failing to cover the story. Fair enough. Since then, it’s been wall-to-wall Dann at the Bellwether, ranging from newsworthy observations to moral indignation to inviting readers to “Name The Scandal”. (Sloat thinks “Boinkgate” is a winner.) Clearly, the former award-winning Plain Dealer reporter has has found a drum he enjoys beating.

It’s certainly a drum worth beating. Dann’s an embarassment and a joke, which is apparent to everyone but himself. My problem with Sloat’s non-stop coverage was how loud he was banging his anti-Dann drum. For example, his items had dirfted into the ”nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more“ category, the most juvenile example being this “Marc Dann appointment calendar”, an incredibly limp humor attempt: “4:30 p.m—Have Sex. 4:32 p.m.—Smoke Cigarette. 5:00 p.m.—Photo Op With Hugh Hefner. 5:30 p.m.—Order Silk Pajamas,” etc. Also, I don’t know about you, but whenever a hardened beat reporter starts acting like he’s going to faint because a politician was caught having an affair, I start itching. Sloat’s breathless POV on the Dann story required calamine.

His call-in interview with Heimlich last week was more of the same. It started with Heimlich saying, “If you think I just put this sex scandal on to get people to listen to my show, I want you to know that’s exactly what I’m doing” and went downhill from there. The milestone was when Sloat mounted the soapbox for a morality lesson and declared the AG’s office to be a “culture of copulation” which caused Phil to swoon over the alliteration. Good Christians of Character like Heimlich certainly have every right to work from the gutter; after all, Phil made his name as a bottom feeder. What had me flummoxed was why Sloat was playing monkey to Heimlich’s organ grinder.

The second half of the show continued along the same lines with a long interview with Kevin DeWine, who as, Phil repeatedly reminded everyone through the show, is incoming Republican Party chairman. In fact, Phil gets so far up DeWine, I was worried that he’d have to be surgically removed after the show. (I assume he was looking for a job up there.) Just like in Sloat’s interview, Heimlich and DeWine spent their quality airtime kicking Marc Dann around the block. But that’s expected of party apparachiks. We’d all be surprised if DeWine and Heimlich did otherwise. (For you masochists out there, the audio of the hour-long show is available on Heimlich’s website.)

But Bill Sloat is supposed to be an independent journalist, not a Republican Party flak. Is a reporter allowed to be opinionated in a radio interview? Of course. Can he make childish wisecracks? Sure, go for it dude. But if a reporter goes into an interview with a politically-driven agenda, his independence as a journalist is kaputski.

That’s why this two-minute section of the interview bothers me. After you get past the haw-haw jokes about Hawaiian pizza, Phil ‘n’ Bill start talking about e-mails which were obtained from Dann’s office in public records requests back from the Coingate days. First, Heimlich describes the e-mails and reads from one of them. Then over the phone, Sloat reads from a different e-mail from the same batch.

How did they both happen to have copies of these obscure e-mails? The only way I can figure is that either it’s an amazing coincidence or somebody exchanged paper before the show.

Bill Sloat and I have a collegial relationship and he usually responds promptly to my e-mails. Since Sunday I’ve sent him the following message twice:

Bill,

I’m reporting on your appearance as the premiere guest on “Hard Truths with Phil Heimlich” and I’d appreciate your answers to some questions.

1) Do you recall what date you received the invitation to appear on the show? Who contacted you?

2) Before the interview, did you communicate with Phil? If so, please describe in detail the extent of your communications.

3) In your years as a reporter, you’ve seen plenty of scandals come and go. On a low-high scale of 1-10, with 10 being Tom Noe/"Coingate," what ranking would you attach to the current situation in the Attorney General’s office?

Thanks and looking forward to your reply. If you could get back to me as soon as possible, that would be appreciated. I may have follow-ups.

Sincerely,

The Dean

Bill, if you’re reading this, I still haven’t received a reply.

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NOTE: If you’re not mowing your lawn, tune in tomorrow to “Hard Truths” in which Phil’s guest will be another journalist whose commitment to objectivity and quality reporting is well-known: the Enquirer’s Peter Bronson.

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