I don’t remember what Bill Veeder, the Charlotte city manager, had done, but he shouldn’t have and I needed to get a city attorney to say so.
At that time I was a young reporter, in my 20’s, working for The Charlotte News. I started off in Charlotte covering county government and the courts and I had been promoted to the city government beat.
Veeder was an excellent city manager. But this time he had slipped up. I don’t remember the details but I do remember that I needed to get one of the city’s attorneys to say so. That wasn’t going to happen, of course, they worked for Veeder.
Or was it.
I decided to present one of the city’s attorneys with a “hypothetical” situation. And then I described exactly what Veeder had done, without mentioning his name, of course.
The attorney commented and I had my story.
Late that afternoon when I returned to my office, in the basement of City Hall, the attorney I had tricked was waiting for me. He was sitting in my chair, reading, or rereading, the story I had written.
“You’re a cheap son of a bitch,” he said, and then he stood up and left without another word. I didn’t have to think about that very long before deciding he was right.
That’s not the kind of reporter I wanted to be, a trickster, and I never did anything like that again.
NOTE: 2 Timothy 2:15 urges us to be like “…a workman that needeth not to be ashamed…”
Coming Friday: The Surefire Bet