Teele criticized, courted media

When Arthur E. Teele Jr. killed himself Wednesday, some considered him a victim of overzealous media coverage. The truth of his relationships with reporters over the years was far more complicated.

BY SCOTT HIAASEN AND AUDRA D.S. BURCH

shiaasen@herald.com
 

For his final venue, he chose the lobby of the city's main newspaper. He did it during the 6 p.m. broadcast of the local news -- which went live with the spectacle. He wore a blue suit with an eye-catching red necktie.

And he made sure his final words were passed to The Herald's star local columnist.

During his 15-year political career, Arthur E. Teele Jr. had a complicated, almost symbiotic relationship with the media -- and with The Herald in particular. To some, it was no surprise that his suicide played out in front of the press corps he'd criticized and courted during his years in the public eye.

Herald reporters wrote many stories critical of Teele while he served on the Miami City Commission and the Miami-Dade County Commission. And more than once Teele pushed back, stomping up to The Herald's fifth-floor newsroom to complain to editors or try to put the brakes on a story.

At the same time, Teele could be solicitous of some reporters, offering tips in off-the-record phone chats, passing along obscure-but-crucial documents and gossiping over late-night drinks at the 1800 Club or other downtown bars (Teele's favorites: vodka and cranberry juice and white zinfandel).

One of the journalists in Teele's orbit was former Herald columnist Jim DeFede -- whom Teele called from The Herald lobby moments before shooting himself in the head. DeFede said the two had a relationship dating back 14 years.

DeFede was fired just hours after Teele's death for recording a conversation without Teele's knowledge.

Teele's name fell to the back of many reporters' Rolodexes after he was arrested last year on charges of threatening a police officer -- the first of three arrests in the last 12 months of his life. Gov. Jeb Bush then removed Teele from his city commission seat.

But at the height of his powers, while chairman of the county commission, Teele recognized the press as another potential lever of power and tried to manage the news as well as make it.

''It was a complicated relationship,'' said former Herald reporter Joe Tanfani, who covered Teele on the county commission in the mid-'90s. ``He spent a lot of his day and his night gathering information. He was savvy in the value of helping reporters with information.''

''He curried favor,'' former Herald Executive Editor Doug Clifton said. ``He tried to influence through complaining and intimidating and at the same time whispering in your ear.''

Teele famously tried to intimidate Clifton during an exchange in the office of former Herald Publisher David Lawrence several years ago. Arguing over a story, Teele, a Vietnam veteran, told Clifton with a hint of warning: ``I've killed people.''

''I've killed people, too,'' replied Clifton, who also served in Vietnam.

Two years ago, Teele went to Herald Editor Tom Fiedler demanding the removal of reporter Oscar Corral from the Miami City Hall beat. Corral had written several stories about suspicious contracts at the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, which Teele chaired. Fiedler refused to move Corral, whose stories later helped form the basis of the corruption charges filed against Teele.

Teele brought to Miami traits that made him both a formidable political figure in an ethnically divided county and an interesting character for reporters.

He came from Washington, where he served in the U.S. Department of Transportation under President Ronald Reagan. As a black Republican, he stood apart.

''He had an air of braggadocio about him, that he knew the Washington scene and he knew how power flowed,'' said Clifton, now the editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

And Teele was not afraid to exert his power at The Herald, even in small ways.

On one slow Saturday afternoon in 1994, Teele called nearly every reporter on the metro desk to make sure someone covered a rare photo op between civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson and Jorge Mas Canosa, then head of the Cuban American National Foundation. At the time, Jackson and Mas Canosa were at odds over the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba.

''Teele thought this was the perfect photo showing the two working together,'' said Tony Pugh, a Knight Ridder correspondent who covered minority affairs for The Herald at the time. ``This was purely political, but damned if he didn't get it done.''

After Teele was accused of punching a lobbyist at County Hall -- the lobbyist, Ric Sisser, now says Teele missed his face but scratched his neck -- Teele held court for the newspaper's editorial board and other editors to explain his conduct. He walked out of the building more powerful than when he walked in.

''Most politicians going into The Herald are, you know, a little cowed,'' said former investigations editor Jim Savage. ``Teele was not at all cowed. He was in command of the whole performance, and we were his audience.''

But Teele also was an intriguing target for the paper's investigative journalists. Teele arrived in Miami with a pile of debts that grew into a mountain over time. He inserted himself into curious, if not suspicious, business arrangements, such as the $85,000 loan Teele received from the Port of Miami-Dade -- funneled through a contractor and a law firm.

''I never could figure out how he was making a living,'' said former Herald reporter Tom Dubocq, who collected blueprints of Teele's condominium in pursuit of Teele stories.

In the end, Teele and The Herald shared a common tension between the press and public figures: each needs the other, but neither is entirely trusting.

''These kinds of relationships are adversarial and symbiotic. Politicians leak stuff to the newspaper all the time without readers knowing it, and then you [media] turn on them when they do something wrong. It's not the media's fault, it's their job,'' said Kevin Hill, an associate professor in the political science department at Florida International University. ``It's an unwritten understanding.''