There must be some days when Pinellas School Superintendent Clayton Wilcox feels like Ron Zook.
Like the former Gator football coach, who was given the unenviable task of succeeding Steve Spurrier, Wilcox had to follow in the footsteps of a legend: Howard Hinesley, who for decades kept Pinellas schools at the top of the academic world and is still widely revered by many parents and school employees. But like the Gators at the end of Spurrier's career, Pinellas schools at the end of the Hinesly era were falling behind.
Wilcox found himself at the helm of a slipping school system, and worse. Twice in his first four months he found himself in front of news cameras answering questions about the deaths of students who had been left at unsafe bus stops after school.
But Clayton Wilcox is no Ron Zook.
His brash, articulate, driven and joking style won some fans right away, perhaps none more influential than the state's largest daily newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times. The newspaper has embraced him as a breath of fresh air and lauded Wilcox as "uncommonly candid." When the school board recently roughed up Wilcox at one of its meetings, the Times responded editorially by taking his side and giving the board an "F" for its myopia.
Given his reputation, it's not surprising that Wilcox would become the first government leader in Tampa Bay to enter an arena infamous for candor: the blog, in his case an online discussion of Pinellas school issues.
What is surprising – given the St. Petersburg Times' normally arm's-length relationship with those it covers – is that Wilcox's partner in the endeavor is the newspaper.
His blog – which discusses school choice, transportation and high school performance – is maintained by the Times at www.sptimes.com/classroom in a section called "The Classroom: An online dialogue about Pinellas education hosted by Clayton Wilcox." Hundreds of parents, teachers and school employees have responded online, many anonymously, most positively.
In the first post on the blog, the Times' online city editor, Kevin McGeever, wrote that people's comments "will be posted as is, but the editors retain the right to delete entries deemed threatening or profane."
Can Tampa Bay's dominant media voice remain objective in its coverage of Wilcox and his efforts given its unique ties to him through the blog?
"I suppose it does raise the perceived image of how can the Times ever write a critical article about the superintendent if they give him such free range on the blog," said Jon Roosenraad, a University of Florida assistant dean of journalism who has taught his college's ethics class for 25 years.
Other media experts were less troubled.
"Newspapers run op-ed pieces from local politicians all the time, with the intention of fostering discussion of issues. Is this significantly beyond that? I'm not sure," said grassroots-journalism advocate Dan Gillmor in an e-mail. Gillmor, a former print reporter at the San Jose Mercury-News widely known for his coverage of the Internet and technology, spoke to Times editors earlier this year, giving McGeever the inspiration to ask Wilcox to host the blog.
Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank that owns the Times, said, "I actually think it's a great idea. … The St. Pete Times is well within the boundaries of good journalism to create a forum that connects the superintendent to parents."
Nonetheless, it will surely raise a few eyebrows, especially for those in Pinellas who don't find Wilcox's style to their liking. The Times, after all, is helping Wilcox pursue his political agenda.
"The reason I have the blog is I was finding it incredibly hard to change the culture," Wilcox told me. "Now I have about 100 parents that I hear from. To me, there's power in that. My job is to capture that emotion and drive" institutional change in the school system.
A casual conversation with Times education reporter Tom Tobin about blogging led Wilcox to hook up with McGeever, who had been looking for a good issue for a new blog. Wilcox said he didn't know how to install his own blog on the school system's website nor did he have staff that could monitor the postings for appropriateness the way the Times does.
The Times is not without its benefits in the deal, too; Wilcox mentioned the Times' story about the blog's inception in a recorded telephone call to 90,000 Pinellas parents, driving traffic to both the newspaper and the website. The Pinellas School Advisory Councils site, independent of Wilcox, drives traffic to the Times site through a prominent link to his blog.
Then there's the issue of fairness to other public officials. Roosenraad asks: "Would the Times give the mayor of St. Pete a blog to communicate to the fine citizens of the city?"
"No one has called me with that request," McGeever said. He added that the newspaper's blogs will be about issues, not personalities.
McGeever said he and his bosses discussed whether they would allow criticism of themselves by the blogger (they will) and insisted that they would not pay the blog host. He said they came to the conclusion that allowing Wilcox to host the blog was no different from the newspaper's sponsorship of last year's vice presidential debates or letting politicians write op-ed columns.
Wilcox assumes his relationship with the newspaper hasn't changed and that he remains fair game if the paper disagrees with a future action.
"I know that there will be a day when I get mine handed to me when we have a difference of opinion," Wilcox said. "I assume they will treat me like they always have."
The Political Whore doesn't blog. Yet. And he discloses he worked for the Times from 1992 to 1994. You can reach Political Whore by e-mail at wayne.garcia@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2005.