Jessica McBride

On 620WTMJ's "Wisconsin's Morning News," Journal Sentinel writer Daniel Bice talked about the process in which he wrote the story about the extramarital relationship between Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn and Milwaukee Magazine (and former 620WTMJ talk show host Jessica McBride). "I got an anonymous letter on June 1st," explained Bice. "Since then, I've been trying to talk to the Chief, to Jessica, to her husband, (former Waukesha County District Attorney) Paul Bucher, the mayor, many people."

"It took a while before the police chief finally decided to issue a statement. He gave it to me yesterday, apologizing for the affair.""It is not been an easy thing for someone to admit. He had to talk to his wife and his daughter.""Last week, I tried to go to a press conference, and they were afraid I might ask this question, so they barred me from the press conference. Stuff has been going on for the last two-and-a-half weeks."Bice also had questions about whether to go with this story. "We struggled with that. Someone sent us what appeared to be a love letter and e-mails between them. We spent time, more than an hour, talking with a journalism ethicist about this."

"I talked to a guy from Boston, and we went through the story to discuss whether this is something that we should write or not, and another guy from Maine. These are two of the leading journalistic ethics professors in the country." Then, the chief took a step that gave Bice the room to tell the story. "Once the Chief decided to make the apology, and to go public with it, then it becomes news."As a journalist, Bice had a keen understanding about the questions that could come with a relationship developed with the subject of a news story.