I had the pleasure of spending an hour last month with a bunch of young journalists at Bradley University.

I was invited to talk about blogging and journalism with Terry Bibo’s news writing class. To provide an air of legitimacy to the event, Bibo invited others; C.J. Summers of PeoriaChronicle.com, Merle Widmer of widmer-peoria-watch.blogspot.com and PJS columnist Kirk Wessler, who blogs at blogs.pjstar.com/wessler/

Supposedly, we were there to discuss the future role of blogging in journalism.

We all pretty much agreed with each other, and when we didn’t we argued in an entertaining manner.

Did these young journalists learn anything? Probably not. But more importantly, we were entertaining. One of the students noticed how much charisma we all had, and how watching us debate was sort of like watching a sitcom.

I could have done without the sitcom comment, but it was nice to hear that we had more entertainment value than the room full of Journal Star reporters/editors who had visited before. I’m telling’ ya, C.J. and I ought to go on tour.

So what did we talk about?

Well, we complained about anonymous commenters. Wessler and Bibo seemed especially offended by anonymous commenters. Myself, I give my readers credit for realizing that an anonymous comment has to be taken with a grain of salt.

I wish we had talked about blogs and citizen journalism more, but we got sidetracked, I think, about the future of newspapers. None of us were really optimistic. The other guys all seemed to think there is always going to be a place for print journalism. I tried to explain that, demographically speaking, the number of people who are devoted to holding a newspaper in their hands is dwindling, while the number of people who get their news electronically — whether from desktops, laptops, or hand-held device — is growing.

I tried to convey the notion that as computers become more common and easier to use, there will be more people using the Internet to become publishers. News organizations owned by corporations will dwindle in importance as more and more one-man (or woman) news operations will become more common. It’s expensive to buy a printing press and to get a licenses broadcast power. Blogs are free. More and more, journalistic reputation will be more important than the ability to buy a seat at the card table.

That’s why I think journalism schools ought to devote some time and effort to teaching students the nuts and bolts of self publishing on the Internet. Coding, database maintenance and network administration should be taught. Journalism schools teach the nuts and bolts of newspapers via participation in the student newspaper. They ought to do the same, but with online-only news ventures, and there needs to be faculty advisers helping them.

District 150 is going to have to explain in court how the employee who dropped a dime on her boss isn’t really a whistleblower

Former District 150 principal Mary Davis has been arrested on eight theft charges stemming from her time as principal at Charles Lindbergh Middle School.

This news hit the local media in the evening of Friday, April 23. Nice isn’t it, how Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons likes to release these little tidbits of news late Friday, so that all the affected parties can leave the office early and avoid phone calls from pesky reporters, giving them a couple days for the story to cool down, and give them all time to get their stories on the same page.

Late in the article, the name Julie McArdle is mentioned. She replaced Davis as principal at Lindbergh. She turned over much of the information about Davis’ alleged misdeeds to the school district, which then turned them over to Peoria police, who turned them over to the Peoria County State’s Attorney’s office. McArdle was then fired by the district.

This is what the Journal Star wrote about this:

“The accusations against Davis first were brought to light by her predecessor at Lindbergh, Julie McArdle.

“McArdle, principal for most of the 2008-09 school year, claims in a federal lawsuit against District 150 she was fired for blowing the whistle on Davis.

“The suit includes photocopies of credit card statements and one of a ledger from Lindbergh, which McArdle and her attorney believe show inappropriate purchases on the credit card and a $4,000 payment to Davis’ Discover card from the student activity fund.”

And also:

“In letting McArdle go, School Board members have said they knew nothing of her claims and their decision to end her contract early came before the allegations.”

Of course, this is bull.

My original story on this issue appeared on PeoriaPundit.com on Monday, April 27, the same day a school board meeting was held during which a vote was taken to not renew McArdle’s contract. As my article made clear, McArdle had at that point already told then Superintendent Ken Hinton about her suspicions and turned over all the documentation.

Hinton had decided to fire McArdle by Friday, April 24, at the latest, since many sources reported seeing it as an agenda item over the weekend. By this time Hinton KNEW she was a whistleblower. So while board members were notified, it’s entirely possible that Hinton might have asked them to fire a whistleblower without telling them they were firing a whistleblower. But I find it highly unlikely that 100 percent of the board was in the dark about the matter.

Is it possible McArdle was such a bad principal that she had to be terminated even though it risked a huge whistleblower suit. But most of the gripes about McArdle run along the lines of her being too strict with kids. Making them take their hats off inside, that sort of thing.

So now the district is going to have to go to court and say that the school board fired a person who turned over evidence that lead to the arrest of her supervisor, and they will have to rely on the testimony of former superintendent Ken Hinton, who the encouraged to retire, to explain that this was entirely justified.

This is not going to end well for the district or taxpayers.