Jerry Bledsoe interviews Mitchell Johnson

Audio of Rhinoceros Times chronicler Jerry Bledsoe's April 2006 interview with Greensboro City Manager Mitchell Johnson and City Attorney Linda Miles can be downloaded here and here. Consider yourself warned: It's almost three hours long.

I've used the audio as material in a two-part series ("Reckless disregard" and "Sensational omissions") detailing how Bledsoe's sympathetic account of former Chief David Wray's fall from grace has unfairly tarnished the reputations of black police officers and other city employees, and how the stories have distorted the facts and mislead the public.

At least one person, blogger Samuel Spagnola, has expressed interest in hearing the recording to assess my reporting that Bledsoe misquoted Johnson by representing a description of how command staff in former police Chief Robert White's administration allegedly condoned a practice of officers using police identity cards to gain free admittance to strip clubs as Johnson's own opinion.

We're big on transparency.

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