Posted on 08/29/2005 11:24:09 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
The networks are clawing for interviews with former Daily Egyptian editor Michael Brenner.
But he's worried if he'll ever land a job in journalism.
"Who's going to want to hire me after this?" Brenner asked in a telephone interview with The Southern Illinoisan from his grandparents' home in Indiana.
The former editor of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale student newspaper is at the center of a media firestorm.
ABC wants to fly him to New York City. So do NBC and CBS. CNN has called, too, he said.
Friday afternoon, Brenner was fielding a constant barrage of calls from the media.
Brenner recently quit his job as a sportswriter with the East Oregonian, a job he landed shortly after donning his gown and receiving his diploma in the December 2004 SIUC graduation ceremonies.
He said he left the Oregon job after only a few months because he wanted to spend time with his family in Illinois - and with the girl he said he had known as "Kodee Kennings."
Now he is the focus of questions and debate in the media world.
He claims he was "an idiot."
It all started when the Daily Egyptian received a letter to the editor from a young girl purporting to be Kodee Kennings, who indicated she was the daughter of a soldier fighting in Iraq.
"At the end of the first Kodee letter, it said something like, 'We love your Michael Brenner'," Brenner said, explaining why the Voices editor of the student newspaper had called the first Kodee letter to his attention.
At the time Brenner was a sportswriter with the Daily Egyptian.
"It was at the end of the great Bruce Weber chase," Brenner said, noting that he had been absorbed in the story about the SIUC coach possibly heading to the University of Illinois. "It was flattering. It was the first time a child had written me and I gave her a holler back."
In the spring of 2003, Brenner wrote a story for the Daily Egyptian detailing an emotional separation between Kodee and the man he said he believed was her father, "Dan Kennings."
The story the Daily Egyptian published reads as if Brenner was on the scene of the emotional parting between father and daughter at Fort Campbell, Ky.
Following is an excerpt from Brenner's Daily Egyptian story:
"In an attempt to delay his departure, Kodee swiped his helmet and refused to let go, saying he could not leave without his helmet.
ìStill in tears, Kennings took his helmet back from his 8-year-old daughter, but he still could not convince her he had to go. She refused to let go of his arms, and pleaded with her father.
ìëPlease donÃt leave,à Kodee begged. ëIÃll be good if you stay. I wonÃt get in troubleDuring the Friday interview, Brenner defended the style of writing he had used in the story.
"It was the style going around the newsroom at the time," Brenner said.
But he also admitted Friday, it was "something I would have changed," looking back on it now.
He said he had compiled interviews from Kodee and a woman named "Colleen Hastings," who he said had portrayed herself to him as the "guardian" of the then-8-year-old girl. He said that for the story he had also relied on letters he thought had been written by Dan Kennings, letters he said were provided to him by Colleen Hastings. He also talked to a "male voice" who claimed to be "Matt Hastings" who was portrayed as Colleen's husband in the Daily Egyptian story.
He said Colleen Hastings had insisted on getting the letters from Dan Kennings back.
"I wish had kept those letters," he said, indicating he had not photocopied them.
Brenner later became editor of the Daily Egyptian. He said he also became "a father figure to Kodee."
He said he "backed away" on the news side and didn't write news stories about Kodee, though he contributed opinion columns about her.
"It was too personal so I couldn't write news stories about her," he said Friday.
But his relationship with her continued to grow, he said.
He was the student newspaper editor when some of the Kodee "Kenningsology" columns were published but was quick to point out in the Friday interview that other Daily Egyptian editors had also published the columns.
He said he spent "1,000 hours" talking on the telephone with a person he said he believed was Kodee. He now believes it was Colleen Hastings, a person identified by the Daily Egyptian in its Friday edition as Jaimie Reynolds, a 27-year-old from Marion who graduated in 2004 from the SIUC School of Radio and Television. In the edition, the student newspaper published a front-page apology under the headline, "To all, we deeply regret our error."
Brenner said, "I thought I had taught Kodee to do algebra over the phone. Now I know why she picked it up so fast."
He said he attended a 9th birthday party for Kodee at the Carbondale Pizza Hut. Even Brenner's parents and grandmother were drawn into the ongoing drama of the young girl, including having a photo of the young girl and the man believed to be her father and on the family refrigerator in suburban Chicago.
The Brenner family was on vacation in Rhinelander, Wis., when word reached them that the soldier they believed was Dan Kennings had been killed in combat Aug. 10. Brenner's cell phone didn't work in the rural northwoods of Wisconsin. His family was at a rented cottage when the owner of the cottage came to the door and told the family there was an urgent message from their grandmother.
They drove into town to get a cell phone signal, and the grandmother told the family that she had received word that the soldier they believed was Dan Kennings had been killed in Iraq. The elder Brenner, now viewed as a father figure to Colleen by his son, immediately phoned to find out was going on.
"We told Colleen we would drive down immediately," Brenner said.
However, she told him to wait.
He said a memorial service was later scheduled for Aug. 20 at the Orient American Legion.
A note had been posted on the Legion's front door instructing that only family and invited guests could attend.
"I thought she was trying to keep the media out," Brenner said.
He also admitted during the Friday interview that no other members of the media had shown up other than current and former Daily Egyptian staffers who he said "weren't there as reporters."
Given the coverage other Southern Illinois media, including The Southern Illinoisan, have devoted to fallen Southern Illinois soldiers, Brenner said he didn't find it strange that other media were absent from the supposed Kennings memorial service.
"I thought they didn't know," he said.
However, he said he found it strange that so few people had shown up at what he believed was a memorial service.
By this time, the Chicago Tribune was on the story originally thought to be that of a soldier who had been killed and had left behind a devoted daughter. At some point, the direction of the Chicago Tribune story had changed.
Soon the Tribune reporters began questioning Brenner.
"They (the Chicago Tribune) started coming to me with all this stuff about them not existing," Brenner said. He said he was shocked. He said they had asked him about official-sounding military forms.
"I was a sportswriter. I didn't know," he said.
Up until Wednesday, when the Chicago Tribune reporters told him Hastings/Reynolds had told them he had originally met her in a bar in 2003.
"That's when I knew something was really wrong," Brenner said.
"I was a sucker to the end."
This idiot has a real future in journalism. He's almost as gullible as rather, and as clueless as olberman. In fact, he's stupid enough to work for CNN.
SO, the daily Egyptian is the name of the college paper. forgive me I dont know local papers. so it was a college paper. but it is a pretty funny story, the busted part
But it does take a lot of hairspray and a talented make-up department.
I claim he still IS an idiot. And a liar. A perfect candidate for an MSM job.
No employment worries here.
I claim he still IS an idiot. And a liar. A perfect candidate for an MSM job.
No employment worries here.
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