Jackson Jambalaya

Yeah, you pounded the Laddpress on that one King. She's always making it sound like she is so connected ... you know, all those emails and phone calls she supposedly receives ... but said posted nothing about this on her web site -- a web venue where she claims she is just as current and breaking as the daily.

Still no peep out of Ladd about the nature of her relationship with Robbie Bell either. Hmmmm.

If indeed Ms. Ladd had a relationship with Robbie Bell, why would she coordinate her staff into this
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=14998_0_9_0_C

Hood's office will prosecute?

Huh?

Faye's office is prosecuting.

Word is that Hood will prosecute. I could be wrong.

Here you go King:

"Attorney General Jim Hood will take over the case of a Jackson man accused of killing his girlfriend. Hood says he'll prosecute George Bell, III at the request of the victim's family."

Once again your blog has scooped the Laddpress. Everyone in town has now reported about Bell but Ladd is mute. I don't wonder why, I know why. Come clean Ladd.

Thanks.

I had commented in an earlier post by posing a question as to whether Mr. Ed Peters had represented any of the Bells currently or in the past. As Mr. Peters has been involved with the D.A.-elect, that is a relevant question. I'm not insinuating anything. Its just that the reporting on this story has been very sloppy. Giving it to Hood's office alleviates many concerns. as Heather Wagner has a very good reputation in dealing with domestic violence cases.

I will give the JFP credit for obtaining the police report. They were the ONLY media source in Jackson to obtain it and publish it.

However, since that long story it published, the paper has been rather quiet about the Bell case. I'd like to think it was because of the election cycle.

'Fish, I think their coverage of the initial Bell slaying seemed solid to me.

With the followup, re: Robbie Bell and the case itself, I'm not sure how much I'd expect them to report. Remember that they have one full-time reporter, Adam Lynch; the other folks are either part-timers or editors who do some reporting on the side.

That's the thing. I mean, the JFP is not a competitor to the Clarion-Ledger. It's a little free tabloid operating on a shoestring budget from a small office with a tiny staff. Their coverage is not going to be comprehensive, or even close to comprehensive. In terms of scale, it is to Gannett what the Belhaven yard sale is to eBay. That's not an insult or a compliment; it's just a statement of fact.

I think the Laddpress has avoided this latest part of the story because she can't bring herself to give King any credit for the scoop despite her broken record complaining about the C-L doing the same to her.

That's the thing. I mean, the JFP is not a competitor to the Clarion-Ledger. It's a little free tabloid operating on a shoestring budget from a small office with a tiny staff.

I hear you and completely agree with you Tom but that is not how Ladd positions and pumps her Laddpress. She has boasted many times to be the C-L's online equal when it comes to Jackson news and her fixation, no make that obsession, with that paper is not that of a gadfly but rather that of a wannabe.

Do as Ladd says, not as the hypocrit does.

King BROKE the story Ladd.

They try to be a competitor of the CL but in reality, they are not. However, I see nothing wrong in her setting that as a goal for them. Heaven knows the CL needs it as it is REALLY a bad paper Just this Bell story alone shows how sloppy the reporting is.

I think its interesting how she yaks about citizen journalist, the new blogs and how the new media is changinf the face of journalisms yet she completely ignores the local blogs on her site. Meaning, if its not HER blogs, then they don't count, despite what she says to the contrary. Here, I mention them all.

Meaning, if its not HER blogs, then they don't count, despite what she says to the contrary.

EXACTLY. Do as Ladd says, not as the hypoLadd does.

Will Hood also be prosecuting Robbie Bell?

Yes.

Said he will personally handle it himself. How is that for taking responsibility? Here is the story from CL:

A man arrested after a standoff with police for allegedly beating his girlfriend to death in Jackson will be prosecuted by state Attorney General Jim Hood.

Outgoing Hinds County District Attorney Faye Peterson said Monday Hood's office asked to prosecute George Bell III in the death of Mary Heather Spencer, and she agreed.

Peterson obtained approval from Circuit Judge Tomie Green earlier this month for Hood to serve as special prosecutor.

"We took the case over at the request of the victim's family," Hood said in an e-mail. "I intend to personally handle the case."

Bell, 33, pleaded not guilty Monday during arraignment in Circuit Court. His attorney, Tom Royals, wasn't there because he said he didn't get a notice about the arraignment.

"I'm the attorney of record, and nobody notified me," Royals said. "That's a shame."

Royals also said he had no information about the attorney general's office prosecuting the case.

Peterson said she, too, was unaware Bell's arraignment was Monday.

Bell and Spencer, 28, dated for about a year and a half, authorities said.

Spencer was beaten the night of Sept. 10, and her body laid in Bell's mother's northeast Jackson house for hours before it was discovered the next day. Bell held officers at bay for more than four hours with a gun to his head before surrendering Sept.11.

An autopsy showed Spencer died from blunt-force trauma to the head and was sexually assaulted.

Bell, indicted in October, is being held without bond in the Hinds County Detention Center. His mother, Robbie, who was in the car with him before the standoff, has been charged as an accessory after the fact.

Hood was a district attorney before joining former Attorney General Mike Moore's staff as special assistant attorney general. He was elected to his second four-year term this month.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff writer LaRaye Brown contributed to this report.
To comment on this story, call Jimmie E. Gates at (601) 961-7212

But Robbie Bell will likely be tried in a separate trial, right? How will that work? Will she be tried after George is sentenced to a lethal cocktail?

The C-L article isn't exactly clear that Hood intends to also be the prosecutor for Robbie Bell though that would make sense in my mind.

reporting has been VERY sloppy. I like Jimmie but he made some errors. Body discovered the next day? Um, Robbie was with it all night. His own paper reported it I think.

BIG problem with CL coverage is the rotation of this story among reporters: Joyner, Gates, and at least one other. How do you rotate the same story? Means three different reporters developing their own research, contacts, etc. Might be one reason why they are overworked and miss stuff. Inefficient if you ask me.

Ladd today:

"Breaking" implies legwork—not simply being the first to throw up a story that everyone is going to have within an hour anyway. We like to be first, of course, and often are. But those aren't the kinds of stories that we kvetch about not being credited for.

Then read this breaking Laddpress blog posting and Ladd followup kvetch.

Do as Ladd says, not as the hypocit does. You just can't make this stuff up.

How many times have they put out a story that everyone else eventually had but griped they weren't crediting.

When I comment about not being credited here, its tongue in cheek or any other shameless self promotion. My philosophy is to act like I've seen the end zone before. In other words, I try to put out a decent product here. If I do it right, it will get noticed based on the work alone, not because I sat around telling everyone how good I am or bashing everyone else to make myself look good. If I scoop the media, and it will be rare that I do, I'll let people notice it. They aren't stupid.

I can't disagree about Donna ostensibly wanting a monopoly on local bloggers; remember that my own experiences with Donna started going south after I moved my blog offsite. That made her very angry, presumably because she felt that she had some claim of ownership over me. This seems to be a common problem for folks who leave the JFP community to strike out on their own.

But I don't hold anything against her for not continuing wall-to-wall coverage of the Bell stuff, because she's just one person and it's just one little weekly paper. If we compare it to, say, the Weekend section of the C-L--which is the closest approximation I can come up with to a local competitor--then the JFP is obviously the best game in town. If we compare it to the C-L daily in terms of expecting comprehensive coverage, then the JFP falls well short, as well it should--it has a fraction of the staff, it comes out only 1/7th as often, and a JFP is much smaller than even one daily C-L. I think Donna would be able to do some great things with a daily paper, but she's not running one right now.

It would be stupid to want a monopoly with the scope of the internet Its simply impossible.

I pretty much agree with the rest of what you say.

I will say this. The people who comment here on the Bell stuff are ALOT better informed than over there. I like Piker fine but if he had read some of my posts on this subject he wouldn't have sounded ignorant or wrong today because he didn't know what he was talking about. The police didn't avoid arresting Bell for the June beating. He wasn't in town long enough for them to arrest him.

and the JFP along with rest of media is ignoring the fact that the charges from June were probably still active.

It is amazing to me. All the severe criticism of Ms Ladd is beginning to sound like a child being upset over some sort of toy that either he/she doesn't have. I read her site, as well as this one. I have NEVER!!! seen any postings such as these. Thank God she is not sinking to this level. She will be respected in the long run too.

Of course you don't see the postings because Ladd deletes them. You must be awful new to these parts.

I haven't criticized here severely in this thread. not at all. I rarely delete stuff here. Sometimes it gets offensive but I leave it up for the most part.

and yes, over there, they are deleted. I can assure you of that. I've also seen her delete her own stuff. There was a nice one where she called Agnew a monkey. Can't find it now. Then there was one the Friday before the election where she started to say what she really thought about Republicans. Its gone. Then see the thread
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=14297_0_9_0_C

and see how Jo-D, who is a local Gay rights activist got treated.

However, I just let the posters here go at it. I bash them some in my posts but I also give them credit when they do something good. Same for Clarion Ledger. I bash and praise them. Sometimes even on the same day.

http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2007/07/you-cant-make-this-up.html

I would think she could delete what she wanted to. She is the editor. Not only that, she has more credentials in her bag than anyone could ever imagine. Not to mention she is on a National Board. She is also respected nation wide, as well.

ok. So what? You are the one who came on here complaining about the comments here. However, the one you are defending has posted alot worse.

No one on this site has gotten a tongue lashing from me that was anything like what Renaldo got from her. She can delete whatever she wants. its her site and her right. However, don't come over here slamming people who post here while ignoring her. Hmmm....is that binary thinking or not?

And big deal if she is on a board. That means nothing. you should know better than to throw out credentials. Didn't save Dan Rather from himself, did it?

Head

I've been watching the JFP site for a while. It seemed like Ms Ladd was relieved when you left. It gave everybody else a chance to talk.

lil fish

No you haven't tounge lashed here, however I know a secret.

really? What is it?

Post or email me.

and by the way, I love it when Brian Johnson posts over here. We disagree on almost everything but I love to read his stuff. A debate with him means I'm 'heaing to the books and online research for awhile. One of the better read peole I've run into anywhere. I've heard more than a few people who totally disagreed with him tell me they respected his views and abilities.

Now lil fish, if I tell you then it won't be a secret any longer....tsk tsk tsk

How is it a secret if I already know it?

Ponder this on the tree of woe grasshopper.

Trust me. You DON"T!!!!!!!!!! have a clue.

fire away.

Anonymous, what you apparently heard from Donna re: being delighted with my decision to leave the JFP community is more or less in alignment from what I've heard from her myself. I consider that part of the "very angry" business, since she didn't express any interest in getting rid of me until I switched from the JackBlog to a personal blog (which she tried to talk me out of doing). She certainly didn't seem to mind getting hits off the blog entries I posted, or asking me to volunteer here and there.

In any case, this thread isn't about me. All I'm driving at is that she's running a small weekly paper, not a large daily paper, and subsequently I don't think it's fair to expect the sort of comprehensive coverage from her that we'd expect from a large daily paper. She's better than the Weekend section, and that's her competition. I personally wouldn't mind seeing a daily paper edited by Donna Ladd--as I said, I think she'd be good at it. I wouldn't want to work for her myself, but I'm sure I'd subscribe.

As far as the blogging community is concerned: Yeah, she obviously doesn't like it when people go off and do their own thing, but if they're good enough, that won't matter. Personally, I don't invest enough time or effort in my personal blog to deserve a whole lot of hits. I'm pretty tightly booked as a writer, so "Head Reactivated" strictly a hobby. I haven't even bothered to stick ads on the thing. If I ever do start up a serious blog on Jackson, I'll be sure to let you know so you'll be able to avoid it, but I don't see that happening any time soon unless some national blogging network makes me an offer I can't refuse.

Agreed re Brian Johnson, 'Fish. A great example of some of the talent JFP has worked with over the years. And Adam Lynch is a journalistic workhorse to end all journalistic workhorses--if the JFP is ever seen as competitive with the Clarion-Ledger, the fact that he does the work of three or four reporters is a major reason why.

lil head

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting Donna Ladd at a social event. For some unknown reason, I happened to ask her about you. Just making small talk. She said that she really had little or no knowledge of you.

Lil fish

"Fire Away"??? Why would I want to fire away, since you seem to be so confident you know the secret?

Anonymous, Donna and I were friends for some time and worked together on a few things, including my blog, a JFP event I co-booked, etc. We're not Abbot and Costello or anything, but we were buddies. You can find evidence of this if you search the old JFP archives.

I still have a great deal of respect for Ladd. I didn't like the way she treated some mutual friends, so I backed away. That's basically what it boils down to. I don't generally talk about it but every now and then I air it out in public, usually on this blog, and that's probably not a very wise thing to do.

The main point of my participation in this thread was to say that the JFP is not a daily paper and shouldn't be expected to do a daily paper's job. I'm not really interested in all this personal drama.

Who cares about Donna Ladd? This is Jackson Jambalaya, a blog, which is extremely enjoyable and full of surprises. Whoever the "anonymous" is with a secret, grow up. Go away and let us enjoy the madness.

:-)

All of this is too funny. Ladd is super freaky that is for sure. Super control freaky.

I'm reminded of the time a year or so back, maybe a few months more, when former Millsaps PoliSci Prof Chris Lawrence presented a paper at some professional gathering exploring cross-over voting in Jackson's 2005 mayoral elections.

Lawrence briefly mentioned in the paper the heavy water carrying Ladd did in the JFP on behalf of Junior's badly listing ship which eventually sunk.

(And let's be clear, it is no secret here in Jackson that she was in tight cahoots with the Johnson campaign the entire election. Johnson campaign staffers have even admitted it so.)

Anyways, Ladd proceeds to go super freaky out about the reference then harangued Lawrence on email demanding that he issue a correction and send it out to everyone who had read his paper. Lawrence told her to take a hike.

True kvetch story. She's super freaky.

Proceed with your madness:a semi-permanent, severe mental disorder typically stemming from a form of mental illness

You should all be ASHAMED of yourselves.

DONNA LADD is educated in NEW YORK and she came back down here to HELP us.

We've SHOWN that we can't TAKE CARE of ourselves.

We're LUCKY to have her DOWN HERE in a city like JACKSON.

She will SHOW us what we need to do so WE can be a GOOD CITY like NEW YORK.

WE should elect her MAYOR.

KING FISH, I'm sure Donna KNEW about what you said before you did.

TOM HEAD, SHAME on you. You should LISTEN to DONNA.

I agree.

LMAO.

This is embarrassing.