Thread by @GanucheauAdam

One year ago yesterday, a Hollywood star sat at my office and screamed at me for a story I wrote.

This thread shows how wild covering politics can be and how journalists can never please everyone.

In March 2018, a guy named Howard Sherman filed to run as a Democrat for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. He was challenging GOP Sen. Roger Wicker, the 10-year incumbent.

Sherman is the husband of Sela Ward, the famed actress from Meridian, MS.

Three Democrats ran for the Democratic nomination. State representatives David Baria and Omeria Scott were well known in the political bubble, so covering them was relatively easy.

But no one in state politics knew Sherman, so we started digging. Things quickly got weird.

First, we set out to answer the questions: Did Sherman actually live in Mississippi? Had he ever lived in Mississippi? Did he do business in Mississippi?

He was born and raised in California. All of Sherman's registered addresses, home and business, were in Beverly Hills, CA.

The address on one of his listed businesses had JUST been changed to a Meridian, Mississippi, address. @KayAnneSkinner and I drove over to check it out. It was a dilapidated trailer in the back of a gas station parking lot with a completely different business name on the door.

Next, we wanted to know about his political history. Records showed he'd never voted in Mississippi, so we checked with California. He was a registered Republican there until 2016 and he didn't vote in 2016 presidential election.

Growing more curious, we follow the GOP thread.

He and Sela hosted a fundraiser at their Meridian farm for GOP presidential nominee John McCain in 2008. In 2006, Sherman gave $2,000 to GOP Sen. Trent Lott. In 2003, he gave to then-senator and later U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Then we found the bombshell: Sherman, who was on the trail talking about how terrible his GOP opponent Roger Wicker was, wrote a $5,000 check –– the maximum amount legally allowed by an individual –– to Wicker less than one year before the 2018 midterms.

So with questions about residency and political history, I drove to Meridian. I camp out on the main drag through downtown Meridian –– actually called "Sela Ward Parkway" –– and I ask as many people as I can what they know about Sherman. No one I stopped even recognized his name.

I talked to a handful of well connected Meridian folks, and most of them had met him through Sela, but none of them saw them around much, bolstering the residency suspicions. Everyone I talked to in Meridian expressed surprise that he was running.

As political reporters, it's our job to lay out the reporting and let readers make their own decisions. Nothing more. Knowing this piece would introduce many voters to Sherman, we carefully considered the structure and tone, and we let him defend himself.

mississippitoday.org/2018/04/26/how…

A couple weeks after we published, I get a call from Sherman's communications director. He said that Howard and Sela were in Jackson and they wanted to stop by the office. There was no stated purpose for the visit, but I strongly suspected what was coming.

Being in the presence of someone you've seen in movies and on television for your whole life is pretty crazy. It didn't take more than 60 seconds to be jolted out of that starstruck feeling. Sela starts going off. Like, going. off. Voice raised, tears in her eyes.

Among the charges she made (and my responses): I didn't talk to people who knew them (we did), I didn't learn about yellow journalism in college (LOL), I published where they lived (we didn't), and I ignored all that she had done for MS (she wasn't the one running for Senate).

After 15 minutes of back-and-forth, she abruptly leaves the room.

After a few seconds of what-just-happened silence, Sherman says, "I'm really sorry. She's obviously really passionate about this race and this state. Wanna do an interview about the issues?"

The direct implication from Sela and Howard was that we wanted another candidate to win. That was, of course, an easy charge to defend. It's also the one we have heard constantly in Mississippi from top elected officials on BOTH sides of the aisle.

A lot of politicians would have you believe that the press is out to get one party or the other. For the vast majority of us, that's not at all the case. This story is just one example of the criticism that reporters catch from both sides on a daily basis.

Sela Ward has done a ton of good for Mississippi, but she wasn't the one running for office. Anyone asking for votes should have to face fair scrutiny and answer tough questions. More often than not, voters don't get to ask those questions. That's where journalists come in.

Political reporters aren't perfect or perfectly objective, and we need to be called out from time to time. Don't stop doing that! Just know that we're working hard for the everyday folks who don't have access to our elected officials and those asking to be elected.

Shoutout to @SereenaOnSocial for capturing the photo on that fateful afternoon, and to @rlnave for having a late lunch and missing pretty much the whole meeting.