Ed Lewis was a high school teacher.
For most of his adult life, he taught chemistry and physics. Through the years, in the Missouri towns of Vandalia and Moberly, he taught all four of his children.
One of those children, a daughter, is a journalist. She has a master’s degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and works as a reporter in mid-Missouri.
Lewis, a Republican, is now a state representative.
This is a story about how those three professions — teaching, politics and journalism — collided. It starts with a letter Lewis received in November. Everybody involved in public education in Missouri — including my wife — received such a letter, explaining that their Social Security numbers might have been available in publicly accessible data on a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website. The letter explained how a person who might have been affected could take extra steps — at the state’s expense — to protect their personal information.
People are also reading…
By the time Lewis received the letter, he knew it had been spurred by the journalism of my colleague, Post-Dispatch data reporter Josh Renaud. In October, Renaud discovered the vulnerability in the DESE website. He verified with a University of Missouri-ºüÀêÊÓƵ professor who is an expert in all things cyber that he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Renaud informed the state of the vulnerability and held off publishing his report about it until the data could be taken offline and protected.
Rather than thank Renaud for his professionalism and fine journalism, Gov. Mike Parson, who, like Lewis, is a Republican, falsely accused Renaud of a crime. He called him a “hacker†and implied he had broken the law to obtain the information that led to his reporting. At an angry news conference, Parson ordered the Missouri State Highway Patrol to investigate.
“We will not let this crime against Missouri teachers go unpunished,†the governor said.
Lewis was a bit dumbfounded.
“That didn’t really sound like hacking to me,†he says. “He discovered something and did the right thing. He did exactly what a journalist should do.â€
Lewis talked to his daughter about it. He worried that the governor’s action might have a chilling effect on young reporters like her. Over the past couple of weeks or so, it became clear that Renaud did everything by the book, after Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson said no crime was committed and the state patrol investigation found that Renaud was never “in a place he should not have been†and only accessed “open data.â€
To date, public records show that the FBI didn’t think a crime was committed. The state patrol found no crime. The prosecutor found no crime. So Parson was asked this week: Would he apologize to Renaud for calling him a criminal?
The answer is no. Parson will not be apologizing. That’s unfortunate. It will forever stain the governor’s legacy. While he hasn’t heard from the governor, Renaud did hear from somebody else in state government: Lewis.
The state representative was moved upon seeing Renaud’s statement posted online after Thompson announced he wouldn’t prosecute the reporter.
“Since my ordeal began, I have tried to follow Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:44 to ‘bless those who curse you’ and to ‘pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.’ It hasn’t been easy,†.
My colleague is a better Christian than I am. I am not sure I could pray for the governor in that circumstance. In his statement, Renaud asked for something simple: an apology from the man who dishonored his name.
He received one not from the governor but from a state representative, a former teacher, a proud dad of a journalist, who saw pure class in action and responded accordingly.
“I just wanted to reach out to you and tell you how happy I was that the Cole County court decided not to move forward with a case against you,†Lewis wrote to Renaud. “I read your response and I thought you handled the dispute with class and represented your profession well. We need journalists to do their job and to do their job without feeling intimidation. ... Please accept my apology for the behavior of our state and to how you were treated. I know it is not my position to extend an apology but as a member of the General Assembly I think I should as a Representative of the state of Missouri.â€
It’s a lovely letter that hit its mark. Renaud was moved by it. I called Lewis this week to ask why he sent it.
“He deserved encouragement, not the opposite,†Lewis said of Renaud. “I felt that Josh was treated poorly.â€
Indeed, he was. Now he’s vindicated, and uplifted, thanks to a teacher who just gave the entire state a civics lesson that won’t soon be forgotten.