On Thursday, John Mitchell and I (FirefighterNetcast.com)had the opportunity to speak candidly with Chief Kelly Edmison of the Union City Fire Department in Obion County, Tennessee.
Click the play button right here
to listen to the podcast while you read along.
Chief Edmison was able to offer his view of the “Firefighters Watch as House Burns” story that enveloped the Fire Service and headline news just weeks ago.
In listening to Chief Edmison talk last night, he gave credence to many of my thoughts. He also explained what the future holds for all of the Municipal fire departments in Obion County.
He further went on to explain that:
- The homeowners had been told 3 times that they hadn’t paid the fee.
- One week prior, the Chief of South Fulton had been reprimanded for putting out a fire at a non-subscribers house.
- When the Cranicks house burned, the Chief of South Fulton contacted his City Manager to see if they could put it out and he was told NO.
- The fire at the Cranicks house got out of hand 2 hours before the garage caught fire.
- This same issue happened in 2008, Chief Edmison thought that the only difference between that occurrence and this one was that the Fire Chief in South Fulton was attacked after the fire.
- Plus much more! Listen here if you haven’t already!
Chief Edmison was also afforded the opportunity to give his accounts on STATter911.com in the days following the incident. Dave Statter was very quick to jump on my back for my opinions of what I thought about the incident. Thanks for the traffic Dave!
I found humor in the fact that other than Dave calling the Firefighters morally and ethically wrong we actually had very similar viewpoints about the incident. I guess Dave just hadn’t pissed off his quota of firefighters that week.
My posts on the topic here
Dave Statter’s posts on the topic here
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This is a tragedy motivated by money, Obviously the system is broken… what if there had been civilians in need of rescue? The Chief is morally bankrupt, there is no acceptable excuse especially fiscal.
We have all been warned not to speed on the highway, If I was to get in a injury vehicle accident in Obion County will they just watch me suffer and video tape while telling me I had been warned not to speed?
I agree with Dave S the Firefighters were morally and ethically wrong
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! I set you up with Chief Edmison and send all of this traffic to your blog and you still want to tell me how wrong I am. If I wanted to constantly be told how wrong I am, I could just walk into the den at my house and listen to my wife and kid.
Let’s get the whole quote in there about morality and ethics. It comes from a reply I made to Art Goodrich-
“I stand by my belief that from a moral and ethical standpoint, standing by and watching the house burn was wrong. And just like the guy with the cell phone video in Georgia it is bad for the fire service in general.”
I have not and will not judge individual firefighters for their decision that day. This is just my overall view of the situation. If it pisses off (I think that’s what you were trying to say as opposed to “pissed of”) firefighters, so be it.
Please don’t say my views of this are similar to yours Rhett. Here’s why.
I still believe the original statement that I called you on is flat out wrong and you should finally do the right thing and admit you mistake. You will be a bigger man for it. Here is that statement, in context:
“The fault lies with the homeowners for not paying the $75 fee. However, the public will not view it as such. The media is also jumping on the band wagon…saying that the homeowner is the victim. The only thing that failed here was the homeowner not paying the fee. Everything else operated as it should.”
I believe it never operates as it should when firefighters aren’t allowed or won’t do the job they are supposed to. Yes, Mr. Cranick screwed up big time, but as I have said many times in this, firefighters are supposed to help people who are having one of the worst days of their lives, even when the people make mistakes.
You became an apologist on this issue, which helps enable the status quo to continue. Chief Edmison has shown leadership (as have the other chiefs) by trying to lead the public and the politicians into doing the right thing despite a lack of support from either group.
The other thing is your jumping on the news media for this story (look at the quote above and your comments on the first FF Nutcast show on this topic). Again you are making excuses when you do that and not addressing the issue. This was not a media problem. This is a fire service problem, apparently created by others. It is now up to the fire service to do its best to change it (again the leadership thing) because it’s firefighters who will continue to look bad and be blamed.
I have not had the chance to listen to this latest show, but in my conversations with Chief Edmison I know that we agree that one way to protect the exposure of the subscribing neighbor’s home is to extinguish the source that is threatening that structure. I know it’s been a long time since I have been in the fire service (I know Rhett, you don’t think I ever was a firefighter), but I beleive that’s still considered a sound practice. That’s a tactical decision that should be made by firefighters and fire chiefs and not politicians. It’s also something that would have kept us from even knowing about this story.
Just some solutions rather than more excuses from The Fire Critic.
Statter
See, here is a classic example of where a national/international body and its president could have issued a statement that I am sure would have AT LEAST lessened the backlash that was felt within the firefighting community, because after all, it was a given that there would be public backlash.
Unfortunately, no one came to the aid of the South Fulton Fire Department, except other firefighters in a rather unchoreographed and reactive way.
The shoulda/coulda/woulda template has been applied to this incident ad nauseum and the news coming out of Obion County is now they are going county wide with subscription service.
THAT WILL NOT FIX THIS and another, similar incident might very well happen again.
If we want this fixed for good, it may take a leader of the fire service at the national level to talk some good ole common sense into the county governance of Obion County.
And the volunteer fire service should seriously consider finding/creating a new organization that will speak with one voice in our best interests in matters such as this.
IMHO
I have now listened to Firefighter Netcast with Chief Edmison and I’m sorry I wasted my time.
John is as bad as you are Rhett trying to blame the news media for the problem. John pointed out that certain facts weren’t reported by the news media and all they were interested in was sensationalism is just more BS and excuses.
There’s a fact YOU are conveniently leaving out when you say that John. The South Fulton chief refused to talk to the reporter and tried to chase him off the property. Is the reporter supposed to get the info by telepathy? Aren’t you doing exactly what you claim the reporters are doing by leaving out that fact when you make the accusation?
And then you spend the end of the show bashing the press. Come on. If you think the reporters created this problem then you guys have really lost it. Instead, you all should be thanking the reporters for bringing this issue to light and helping the fire chiefs bring change.
And talk about sensationalism, isn’t that the same thing you are doing (or me for that matter)? You now have done your second show on this story. Why? Because it is bringing you more web traffic than any other show you’ve done. Is that any different than what a TV news operation does for ratings? Instead of blasting the reporters in Tennessee you should send them thank you cards for giving you a hot topic to talk about.
As Pogo famously said, “We have met the enemy and he is us”. John, please explain to Rhett who Pogo is.
Statter
You are right Dave. I should have asked about the Chief and the reporter. Unfortunately that is the first time I had heard about it.
Rhett,
Two things would have likely been different if Union City was called out to the neighbor’s house. One, as Chief Edmison said, he would have made the tactical decision to put out the original fire to protect the exposure. Two, he would have talked to the reporter on the scene explaining the issues.
As I have said all along, each could have changed how firefighters were perceived (or prevented the story from going viral).
But in this case I am getting on your partner who probably had much better sense before being corrupted by you. John was the one who failed to mention that fact when he was getting on the media for failing to mention the facts that the chief of South Fulton never gave them.
I am all for holding the news media accountable. But you guys are just doing the knee jerk anti-media reaction as plenty of fire chief’s (and others) have done in response to bad news. That’s not the way you are going to win this issue and it makes you guys look bad. That’s not leadership.
I am serious when I say we are also the media, so be careful when you toss out these claims of sensationalism.
Statter
I cannot speak for John, but as I have said since I made the first comment about media…I was not blaming them for anything. I was merely pointing out the fact that they sensationalized it. That is what they do. They do it for a reason. I don’t blame them for it, for the story going viral, or anything really.
The headline doesn’t tell the whole story. I am not quite sure I have ever blamed the media for anything.
When we read about corrupt firefighters, firefighters arrested for heinous crimes, or whatever else that firefighters do wrong it is bad for the fire service. We are held to different standards and headlines grab peoples attention. Especially when the media can swap the word “man” for “firefighter” because he is a firefighter.
You jumped sensitive to the point that I made and felt as though I was blaming the media. That is not the case.
Dave:
You have made some very valid points.
Now, I wish you could make nice with Rhett and John.
The reasons that you champion in your replies is the reason that I don’t want any perceptions by anyone in blogisphere that I am reporting news. I am not and will not be a “news reporter”.
However, I will use a news story as the starting point for my “analysis”; an analysis where I can usually tilt the discussion towards my “opinions” on a matter of consequence.
I had hoped that we bloggers could avoid pitfalls in discussing opposite views and maintain a high standard of respectful debate.
But, I have concerns now and if this debate between bloggers is just another example of ball busting between buddies, then I would suggest that we say that now, because I am sure that there are those who are choosing up sides.
If you are indeed news reporters, then you should be very clear on that.
Otherwise, you will end up like Juan Williams.
And we should be more cogent about creating dialogue and less concerned about “hits” to our blog sites. We don’t want to be corrupted by a “system”.
When it gets to a point where my contributions to blogging are measured solely on the number of hits my blog site gets, then I will find another past time.
We should take the time NOW to give pause and to reflect on why we do what we do.
I don’t think that it was to create a spectacle for the entertainment of our followers.
Now, I must re-think what I want to do for a podcast.
Chief,
I’m all for respectful disagreement on the Internet. I have tried to encourage it since I began the blog. Now, almost 20,000 comments later I am a complete failure in reaching that goal on my site (though the discussion generated by the Obion County controversy was among the more respectful and had very litttle name calling).
I will admit to setting a poor example with first Rhett and now John as my targets. But to me it is mostly tongue in cheek and yes, maybe a little showmanship to bring attention to what I think is one of the more interesting issues I have dealt with on the blog. Hence, my original headline calling out Rhett. It’s just a way of getting more people into the tent.
I probably would never to write this way about people I didn’t know or like (you always hurt the ones you love). But I don’t know if ball busting is an accurate term for it. You actually have to have the equipment (there I go again). In this case, my whole point is that by using the dodge and smokescreen of pointing the finger at the bad, bad news media, my two friends are showing maybe something’s lacking in that department.
My BS detector goes off when I hear some of the statements about the media sensationalizing this story. Or criticism of a headline that says, “Firefighters watch while house burns”. That isn’t sensationalizing, that’s just the main fact of this story.
And it is pure chutzpah for John to point out that a reporter left out a fact when John is leaving out the fact that the reporter may not have had those facts because the fire chief tried to chase him away.
There are plenty of times when the news media has done a terrible job and I have no problem highlighting them. This is just not the main issue here and just diverts attention from the real story.
I get your point of why YOU do the blog, but let’s forget, that like a TV news operation, we have paid advertising on our sites. We also get more money as the number of people viewing the blogs inceases. Whether we are providing news or opinion there are some similarities.
All I’m saying is if you are going to throw stones, make sure you use the Windex first so you have a clear view of what you aiming for and that it is not just a reflection.
Always appeciate the dialogue.
Statter
Dave:
I guess with me, it all comes down to this:
Do I want to be the rock star or the musician?
Do I want to be the race car or the race car driver?
Do I want to be a cook or a chef?
Do I want to be a specialty shop or a department store?
Do I want to be a bulletin board or a blogger?
What do I want?
Hmmmm.