A good newspaper is an important member of any community, especially urban metropolitan areas like Milwaukee.

A good newspaper investigates problems, exposes corruption, provides information and even entertains.

We here in Milwaukee are getting increasingly badly served by our daily newspaper, which seems to have lost all common sense and journalism ethics. This is happening more and more and we are much poorer because of it.

It’s hard for me to compile a list of examples, but suffice it to say it’s a long list with glaring errors of judgement.

You may remember when their big-time investigative columnist made this huge deal about the salary of Don Smiley, the executive director of Summerfest. Nobody really cared about it, except for Dan Bice, the columnist, and his paper. The whole thing just smacked of jealousy.

Now they have taken on two guys who have been an important part of the fabric of Milwaukee for decades.

Bice has proven just how ridiculous he can be by breathlessly reporting that there may well be a conflict of interest between Judge Jeff Wagner and attorney Frank Gimbel. Gimbel is representing John Spooner, the old white guy on trial for killing a young black neighbor.

Bice goes to great lengths to report that Wagner’s son Benjamin is married to Gimbel’s daughter Rachel. Benjamin and Rachel have a child who is the grandchild of both Wagner and Gimbel.

Then Bice cast his net around and found a professor at the University of Wisconsin law school to cast aspersions on both Wagner and Gimbel for having a potential conflict of interest. Bice also reported that he has seen picture of Gimbel and Wagner in the same foursome at the annual Milwaukee Bar Association golf outing.

Part of this whole thing is Bice’s almost total ignorance of real life. I’ve played in that golf outing. There are lots of judges playing golf with lots of attorneys.

There are lots of judges who have dinner with lots of attorneys.

But over and above all that, both Gimbel and Wagner are men of widely known integrity. Their honesty may sometimes rub some people the wrong way, but it is an ethical honesty that both men use as guiding principles.

I know people who don’t like Gimbel. I know people who don’t like Wagner. And I know both Wagner and Gimbel.

Even among the people who don’t like one or the other, nobody ever complains about their ethics. And I’ve always believed that neither one of these men ever cuts corners or dodges the ethical perimeter of what they do.

What this is a cheap shot of the highest order. I think Bice ought to investigate stuff and write about it. But to build a whole column out of some misguided sense of outrage is yet another example of the depths to which the Milwaukee Journal has sunk. And the whole thing makes me sad and disgusted.