The San Antonio Express-News has fired a senior staff writer, who alleges his termination came after Republican Bexar County judge candidate Trish DeBerry falsely accused him of sexism and bias while working on a story about her.
Bruce Selcraig, a decorated magazine writer and seven-year veteran at the daily, said DeBerry met with newsroom higher-ups in late September and complained about questions he posed as he worked on a lengthy profile of her in advance of the Nov. 8 election.
He alleges DeBerry also raised concerns about a text he inadvertently sent her that was intended for one of his editors. In that message, he questioned her credibility on a particular campaign issue.
Selcraig, who has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine and Smithsonian and worked as a staff investigative reporter with Sports Illustrated, said his firing suggests leadership at the Hearst-owned Express-News is unwilling to stand behind the work of its own staffers when confronted by Alamo City elites.
“This really is something people have to care about if they want an independent, aggressive newspaper that’s willing to hold the powerful accountable,” Selcraig said.
DeBerry — a longtime public relations professional, political operative and one-time mayoral candidate — is running an underdog campaign to win Bexar County’s top elected seat. Retiring Judge Nelson Wolff, a Democrat, held that position for more than two decades.
DeBerry and members of her campaign did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Neither Express-News Publisher Mark Medici nor Editor-in-Chief Marc Duvoisin would comment on Selcraig's termination, saying company policy forbids them from talking about personnel matters. However, an Oct. 12 email from Medici obtained by the Current, confirms his firing. The email blames the termination on Selcraig’s unwillingness to meet with management. He says he was willing to meet but wanted a lawyer present.
Selcraig leveled much of the blame for his termination at Medici, whose background is in brand marketing rather than journalism. He argues that during the publisher’s tenure, the paper has flinched from pursuing tough stories about powerful figures.
“When I was with Sports Illustrated in the late 1980s, my work as an investigative reporter was scrutinized by a raft of editors and lawyers, but we never backed off of tough stories involving Mafia-backed sports agents, the NFL lords, various big universities and famous athletes like Pete Rose,” Selcraig said. “I've had the same type of editorial support from magazines such as Harper's, Mother Jones and The New York Times Magazine, but at the Express-News under Mark Medici there seems to be a timidity and amateurish self-censorship that, I think, comes from his not ever having been a real journalist.”
Selcraig said Duvoisin encouraged his writing and nominated a series he did on the dangers of rental scooters for a 2019 Pulitzer Prize. However, he found the editor sheepish about moving ahead on controversial stories.
A book published this summer by Los Angeles Times reporter Paul Pringle accused Duvoisin, who served as that paper’s managing editor before landing at Hearst, of being among the top editors who tried to suppress his 2017 story on a scandal at the University of Southern California’s medical school.
“The entire premise is false,” Duvoisin told the Washington Post after the release of Pringle’s book Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels.
Other San Antonio journalists who know Selcraig said his firing from the Express-News raises concerns about the daily’s willingness to stand up to local elites.
“If Selcraig was fired for asking tough questions to a candidate for office on behalf of the people and voters of Bexar County, that raises questions about the independence of the Express-News,” said Charlotte-Anne Lucas, executive director of nonprofit Alamo City newsroom NOWCastSA.
Lucas worked at the Express-News as a business editor during the 1990s and served in the trenches at the Dallas Times Herald with Selcraig in the 1980s. She’s also taught journalism at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Texas A&M San Antonio and St. Mary’s University.
“Journalism must strengthen democracy, not undermine it by shrinking from our role as watchdogs for the truth,” she added.
Selcraig alleges that Duvoisin and Express-News City Editor Greg Jefferson met with him Sept. 30 at a north-of-downtown coffee house. The pair prodded him about whether questions he posed to the divorced DeBerry about whether she planned to marry again and the nature of her relationship with her top advisor, former mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse, were sexist in nature.
The editors also brought up the text message Selcraig accidentally sent DeBerry, according to the reporter. In it, he stated he didn’t believe one of the candidate’s claims. He said DeBerry told the editors that the text was evidence of his bias against her.
However, Selcraig said the sexism and bias accusations amount to a “smokescreen” by DeBerry, who wanted to get his story killed. By the time of the meeting with his two editors, he’d completed the profile, which both higher-ups had given positive reviews, he added.
Following the meeting, Duvoisin said he was killing the story and reassigning it to other writers to avoid the appearance of bias, according to Selcraig.
“This is a very adept public relations woman who knows precisely how to get the attention of the newspaper,” Selcraig said. “She has a reputation for claiming sexism when she doesn't get what she wants, and that's clearly what she's done here.”
To be sure, DeBerry has played the sexism card before during her campaign for county judge.
After dark-money group Friends of Bexar LLC bought $259,000 worth of TV time to attack DeBerry, attempting to paint her as an ethically challenged extremist, she accused personal injury attorney Thomas J. Henry of bankrolling the spots without offering proof of his involvement.
During an Oct. 3 press conference in front of the Bexar County Courthouse, DeBerry accused Henry of sexism, a charge he denied in his own presser in front of the courthouse. Surrounded by women who work at his firm, the lawyer lashed out at DeBerry, calling her a liar.
Selcraig’s misfired text pertains to DeBerry’s claims about the origins of that dark money. In a text he showed to the Current, which he said he accidentally sent to the candidate, Selcraig suggested that one aspect of the dark money issue be downplayed in the story because “we probably don’t believe Trish.”
After DeBerry responded, appearing to demand an explanation, the two exchanged additional texts. During the back-and-forth, Selcraig told her that she was “credible on many things” but that he didn’t buy her explanation of who instigated the attack ads.
“For the first time in my life, I mistakenly sent a text to the wrong person. But there were no libelous words or salacious allegations, just my observation that DeBerry was not credible in her explanation of who was really behind the dark money TV attack ads targeting her recently,” Selcraig said. “She spun this tale about it being done by a former trusted staffer, Thomas Marks, and then just days later, proving my point flawlessly, she changes course completely and accuses Thomas J. Henry of being the dark money prince.”
‘Tremendous loss’
In Medici’s email firing Selcraig, the publisher accuses the reporter of standing him up for a series of proposed meetings over a 48-hour period, citing that as a primary reason for his termination.
"Your refusal to meet with management, or even respond to the company’s numerous attempts to address the substance of this matter with you, coupled with your refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of your conduct, leaves us no choice but to terminate your employment effective immediately," Medici wrote.
Selcraig said he responded to Medici but asked to have legal counsel present. He also asked the publisher to present him with a list of alleged violations of company policy. Selcraig further explained that he had a rocky relationship with some members of newsroom management, especially previous Editor-in-Chief Mike Leary.
By Selcraig’s admission, he drew some of that fire for making a 2016 complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor about the way newsroom handled overtime compensation. Even so, Labor Department documents suggest that case was resolved before the arrival of Duvoisin and Medici, who came to the paper in 2018 and 2020 respectively.
Retired Express-News staff reporter John MacCormack defended Selcraig’s record, saying he never saw the writer act unprofessionally or make any ethical breaches during their time at the paper. What’s more, he noted, daily newspapers tend not to fire reporters unless their breaches of conduct are extreme.
“There’s got to be more to it than this text; it’s all the stuff we don’t know that matters,” MacCormack said. “It doesn’t look good for a paper to yank a veteran reporter off a story and fire him because he’s upset a major political figure who happens to be running for county judge.”
Longtime Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Tom Belden has tracked Selcraig’s career since the pair worked together at the Dallas Morning News. The pair reconnected after Belden retired in the San Antonio area, and the retired newspaperman said he regularly read Selcraig’s work in the local paper.
Like MacCormack, Belden said Selcraig’s firing isn’t a good look for the Express-News.
“It’s a tremendous loss for the newspaper, and it’s mysterious to me what motivated the publisher to make the decision,” he said. “The readers should have serious questions about why someone as capable as Bruce was summarily fired.”
Selcraig said his age now makes it unlikely he’ll be able to land a staff position at another publication. What’s more, he worries DeBerry’s allegations of sexism will follow him as he tries to continue working on a freelance basis.
Beyond those personal concerns, though, he said San Antonians should be bothered by how easily a complaint from the political insider led the paper to turn on one of its own.
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