I was somewhat amazed to hear that the staff at the Arizona Daily Independent received an irate, better yet belligerent phone call the other day from Mr. Craig Harris, the senior investigative reporter at the Arizona Republic, referred to by many as the Arizona Repugnant. Given the confidence, better yet arrogance, of this wannabe muckraker in the Republic of Maricopa, it amused us, albeit darkly amused us, that the fellow with more ink than most Arizonans was so breathtakingly defensive about his seemingly endless “reporting” on Mr. Timothy Jeffries, the former colleague/client-loving Director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES), affectionately known by several thousand supportive DES employees as “Director J.” (Arizona’s Poor Lost When Jeffries Was Axed)
The memorable phone call leads us to believe Mr. Harris is not nearly as confident in his shoddy, superficial, one-sided, mean-spirited “investigative reporting” about Mr. Jeffries as he surely wants the Pulitzer Prize Committee to believe. In fact, we wonder aloud if he thinks our humble truth-telling blog has finally unmasked him for the devious and deceitful charlatan that he was in subjecting the God-loving patriot “Director J.” to an unceremonious and unjust death by a thousand scurrilous paper cuts. His impressive, unprofessional and petulant rant reminds us of the great Shakespeare scene in Hamlet. You know the one…
One of the comments left after the article -
Craig Harris has done a serious disservice to the poor of Arizona, but then what does he care? His singular objective was to take a good man, a change agent, who worked diligently to move the culture of a “me” oriented agency, and give it a soul that focused outwardly on the poorest among us. I spoke several time with Tim and each time the conversation was about others, not himself. It was about topics like employees at the agency who were stealing from the poor when they game the system, or people who look down on the less fortunate as though they themselves were superior. His objective was to “drain the swamp” of DES, ridding it of bullies, bad actors, arrogance and people who stole from the poor.
Harris has caught the attention of many, and has spurned some to ask about standing up a school of investigative journalism to combat the lack of journalist integrity, to raise the bar high enough so that pathetic excuses for writers such as he have no place to go. Director J will be missed, but he will. It disappear. Some fortunate organization will get a passionate, servant leader when they hire Tim Jeffries and I will be glad for them both.