I want to issue a public apology to the family of the late
Anthony Tiseo for a blog that I posted on Wednesday which was based on incorrect
information. It certainly was not my intention to disparage Mr. Tiseo’s legacy
in any way.
While writing the blog, which claimed that the deceased Mr.
Tiseo won re-election to the St. Clair Shores City Council on Tuesday, I relied
upon election results published by the Detroit Free Press and The Macomb Daily,
which has had a stellar reputation for local Election Night reporting for
decades.
It was discovered later, long after the polls had closed,
that in the process of St. Clair Shores officials sending election results to
the county clerk’s office, a grievous error had been made. For about 20 or 30
minutes – right around deadline time for local newspapers – inaccurate results
were posted on the county clerk’s website. Those results indicated that Mr.
Tiseo had received 4,172 votes for council.
Elections officials concluded that the votes attributed to
Mr. Tiseo were actually garnered by another council candidate. In fact, as required by
state law, any votes cast for Mr. Tiseo were never counted. But the media was not alerted about the error.
The type of election story that seemed to be playing out
in St. Clair Shores during the early-morning hours of Wednesday has occurred
before, in other parts of Michigan and other parts of the country. When it does
happen, the use of the phrase “dead man” to quickly explain the story is almost
inevitable. It was certainly not my intent to denigrate Mr. Tiseo. In fact, the
blog I posted did not criticize Mr. Tiseo in any way. My criticism was aimed
strictly at St. Clair Shores voters and that critique was, in the end, based on
entirely inaccurate information.
When I realized my error, I deleted the blog post.
Again, my apologies to the Tiseo family and to the voters of
the city.
Kudos for the apology, Chad. Does this fall under the category of "too good to check out"?
Thanks for this, Chad. Big men admit their mistakes – even honest ones that are the result of other people's screw ups. I think you handled this perfectly appropriately.
Thank you for the apology.
I just saw this, Mrs. Tiseo. Thanks so much for this response. Things got really out of control for a while there with all the Facebook comments.
Good luck on the fundraiser event tomorrow night. Can you, or someone else involved, send me some basic information about Saturday's event — preferably an electronic version of a flyer or something like that? I have a lot of Facebook followers and I would like to post the information as a further attempt to make amends.
While I also thank you for the apology, I am a citizen of St Clair Shores and I was PROUD and downright overjoyed to be able to cast one last vote for Tony Tiseo. I'd vote for him in every election to come if I could, too. So your "criticism… aimed strictly at St. Clair Shores voters…" WAS based on some facts, even if the city can't report them. There was really nothing to vote for in SCS – only one candidate was available for each position – so my symbolic vote was to honor a great man, an even better politician, and one of the best friends anyone could have asked for.
I understand where you're coming from.
It takes a real person to admit their mistakes. Nobody's perfect and I'm glad that the poor taste in words chosen, even if taken out of context, were deleted and apologized for. It's appreciated. Knowing how much Tony was loved, I'm not one bit surprised at the votes he got. I wish for just Tuesday I lived in the Shores again, so I too could give Tony one last vote. He deserves every last one he got. Faithful in his commitment to the city until his last day here. Putting signs out that Sunday. He was a class act.
I don't have a Like button on my blog, but you certainly deserve one.
Well done Chad, and as I said before, Please feel free to stop by on saturday, at Barrister Gardens. Maybe you can find a story about one of the good ones.
Well done Chad, and as I said before, Please feel free to stop by on saturday, at Barrister Gardens. Maybe you can find a story about one of the good ones.
The apology is nice, but as a "longtime political reporter", shouldn't you have checked your sources first? And in response to you comment that the phrase "dead man" is almost inevitable, might I remind you of another phrase, "if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?".
I hope that if one day you have the honor of knowing an amazing guy like Tony Tiseo, you'll understand what a man like him meant to his family, his friends and his community!
I did not know Mr. Tiseo but, based on the outpouring of grief and admiration after his death, I wish I had.
However, as I explained in my public apology, all of the media were misled about the vote-counting outcome, not just me. The Macomb County Clerk's Office is the ultimate source for election results.
Nice enough, but you haven't address your comments regarding the intelligence of the voters of SCS who voted for Tony as a token of respect and love.
Whoa, Susie. You are misreading my blog comments. Based on faulty information from election officials, I was suggesting that a huge number of St. Clair Shores voters had cast ballots for Mr. Tiseo, not knowing that he had passed away. That was the entire point of my blog.
We will never know how many votes were cast for Mr. Tiseo out of respect for the deceased councilman.
We need to not attack Chad for using the term "Dead man". It is a fact of life that we all die. We need to stop being so politically correct. Phrases like recently deceased and passed away take away from the serious nature of death. I did not know Tony Tiseo personally; however, it is evident that he touched many people in his time on earth. Rather than criticize Chad we should be celebrating the life of Tony.
Thank you.