Kane Watch: What it's really all about

As Cantankerous stated in this post, I've been questioning whether or not the Kane Watch feature on this blog is worth maintaining. When I first set out on this endeavor, I did so under the belief that far too little scrutiny was placed on Eugene Kane's writing. Unfortunately, this belief was based on Googling Kane well over a two years ago and finding very little written about him. I'm not sure if the search engine got stronger or if the electronic commentary grew since then, but if I had done the same thing just before posting the very first Kane Watch, I would have found that the scrutiny on Kane was far more robust than I had previously believed. Doing a blog search alone reveals that the Cheddarsphere has been all over Eugene Kane for some time.

Considering recent events, it shouldn't surprise anyone that coverage has spiked. In no way whatsoever do I pretend to be the person who started this. Just look at posts like this one or this one from Plack.net, both dating back to before our blog ever existed. Check out this hilarious satire from I Am The Force. Panther Talk Live calls for blacks to "throw Eugene Kane under the bus." Non-Conformist Commentary was "Taking on Eugene Kane" back in August of 2004. The World According to Nick gives Kane a good fisking here. And Suburban Life simply calls him a "blubbering racist idiot."

The very first Kane Watch was picked up by the well-read and oft-referenced Marquette Warrior, where John McAdams provided his take on Kane. All of this takes place at the time of the McClain mob-beating, fodder for anyone with an opinion on Milwaukee race relations. Jessica McBride's response: The Starfish, containing the now infamous implication, today confirmed, that Eugene Kane wasn't willing to put his money where his mouth was. Charlie Sykes pounced on that. A letter to Kane asked him outright if he was the columnist McBride wrote about. Kane replied that he was, but not without adding his own little flavor of racism. Sykes' producer Joe Scialfa spent a portion of his show today discussing this latest event.

How silly of me to ever doubt that Kane wasn't receiving his fair share of scrutiny.

Simply by virtue of the fact so many are talking about Kane, it's unlikely the Journal-Sentinel would let him go, even with his recent demonstration of being fairly inept as a reporter. Just as Jessica McBride has been taking the paper to task for having an obvious liberal assigned to Waukesha who seems unable to keep her personal opinion out of news reports, I think it's high time Kane be reassigned. His column shouldn't be considered news. It shouldn't be carried in Metro. If anything, his writings are best suited for the editorial page. Either the paper needs to reign him in and limit his reporting to "just the facts," or put him alongside the letters to the editor.

Even then, though, Kane remains irresponsible with the voice he has. His objectivity as a journalist takes a back seat to his desire to find racism at every turn. As the voice of black Milwaukee to Journal-Sentinel readers, Kane causes more problems then he hopes to solve. Over the years he's done more to widen the gap of understanding between blacks and whites than bridge it. How he can possibly hope to affect change while taking such a divisive approach is beyond me. I'm sure he could claim that as a "reporter," it isn't his job to cause change but rather report the news.

But we all know how baseless such a claim coming from Kane would be.

As to why I considered stopping Kane Watch, I thought that all the attention he was getting from bloggers and on talk radio might be turning into a virtual lynch-mob. All that could possibly result from that is his becoming a martyr of sorts. Imagine how that would fuel the fire. Imagine Jesse Jackson standing outside the Journal-Sentinel offices, coming to his defense.

So I want to once again state what I hope to accomplish with Kane Watch. I want everyone to understand that my goal is not to silence Eugene Kane, but rather to make him accountable. I want the Journal-Sentinel to acknowledge that Kane is not a news reporter. And I want Eugene Kane to step back, look around, listen to the criticism and maybe, just maybe, consider that he's going about things the wrong way.

I'll keep watching.