Tuesday, January 19, 2010
40 Jealous Whores / Woods Tennessean Gives $15K to Music City Center Cause
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 4:20 PM
Comments (14)
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This is Silverman's statement, via Kleinheider:
The Tennessean did indeed contribute $5,000 to the coalition in 2006. I was unaware of the contribution — and editors, reporters and editorial writers were unaware of that contribution as well. Fact is, the business side of media operations — almost all media operations — support business or community campaigns from time to time without any newsroom knowledge or involvement. In no way has the contribution had an impact on our editorial position or our coverage of the convention center. I was as surprised as you were.
Silverman gets the ethics here stunningly and embarrassingly wrong.
It is not business as usual for media operations whose main focus is news to donate to partisan political causes lobbying on controversial political issues that the news side is covering. We're not talking here about some far-flung conglomerate that happens to include a newsroom among vast holdings; this is a political contribution by the goddamn newspaper.
Silverman's assertion that the contribution had no impact on news coverage is a red herring and beside the point. Who is claiming that the contribution per se causally influences coverage? The problem is that the appearance of such a naked conflict of interest compromises any claim to newsroom neutrality or impartiality. You manage a conflict of interest by eliminating the conflict, not by asserting afterwards that it had no effect on the purity of your motives or actions.
What Silverman should have said, if he truly was unaware of the contribution: "I was appalled to learn that the people running the business side of the paper do not understand that newspapers covering politics don't make contributions to political causes. It compromises the integrity of the journalism we have been doing on this issue all along. We are embarrassed by this obvious lapse in newspaper ethics, and it will never happen again."
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Man, how much must it suck to discover this was why you had to take unpaid vacations all last year, so that The Tennessean could funnel money to the convention center folks.
$15000 is a lot of vacation days.
Tim Chavez could have used that, too.
Eh, just one dinosaur supporting the building of another one.
The Tennessean is like a Japanese house with paper walls long since shredded by an unrestrained John Belushi.
Gasp!
Surely there was no conflict of interest for Ellen Leifeld being the publisher of the Tennessean and heading up the Convention & Visitors Bureau at the same time.
Perish the suggestion!
Note the hedge phrase: editors, reporters and editorial writers were unaware of that contribution
Shorter: "Ignorance is an excuse."
Oh. Okay. Was Gannett aware? Was the publisher? Just who has the discretionary authority to stroke checks for $5,000 at a time for an external interest like the MCC? And then not to correct the editorial staff when they [inadvertently] run afoul of the truth? Does the person that can write these checks not read the Tennessean?
"What Silverman should have said, if he truly was unaware of the contribution: "I was appalled to learn that the people running the business side of the paper do not understand that newspapers covering politics don't make contributions to political causes. It compromises the integrity of the journalism we have been doing on this issue all along. We are embarrassed by this obvious lapse in newspaper ethics, and it will never happen again."
You're right, Bruce, except that the editor of a Gannett newspaper can't make the promise it won't happen again. Editors once had influence on the operation of the enterprise, but no more.
I believe Silverman had no knowledge of it and that he is probably as appalled as the rest of us. Unfortunately at too many newspapers the editor's voice carries little weight unless he/she is discussing how they are going to increase circulation or trim costs.
I'm sure that's true, Jim. But in that case, Silverman probably ought to refrain from the high-minded lectures on ethics. If he can't say whether his pooh-bahs are going to dump $15,000 into a controversial political campaign, then he ought to keep his mouth shut.
If he can't say whether his pooh-bahs are going to dump $15,000 into a controversial political campaign, then he ought to keep his mouth shut.
Or someone should have hipped Silverman to the fact that the Tennessean was taking action inconsistent with its own reporting, i.e that the donations put the lie to what was printed, and a retraction could have been offered.
"No, wait, sorry. We said we didn't contribute money to MCC. Actually, we did. A considerable amount, at that."
But then, that would mean that the Tennessean was
* admitting guilt to sins of omission and commission, if not outright conflicts of interest;
* in the business of pursuing the truth, rather than simply presenting inaccuracies as fact and leaving it up to the readership to sort out the mess once the receipts surfaced;
* taking at least a modicum of responsibility for its false reporting (even if it was not known to be false by the editorial staff at the time; someone wrote those checks against the company ledger and presumably has a copy of the company phone and email directories).
I believe Silverman had no knowledge of it and that he is probably as appalled as the rest of us.
It's more than that, though. Someone hung Silverman and his staff out to dry, and if it were me, I'd be more than eager to find out just who signed those checks that I said that my organization didn't write.
There's a real credibility crisis at issue here, which is not a good thing for a struggling daily. Some people still give a shit about editorial neutrality, and this looks a lot more like payola.
How can you really ever trust anything that the Tennessean writes in its editorial page again? I mean sure, we knew they were a little slanted at times, but my God, this is just downright a failure of ethics to the nth degree. It's hard to remember a news organization failing in this capacity, ever. Can someone remember a greater failure of ethics by a newspaper?
The total of all contributions is exceeded only by the amount of tax money MP&F received to lobby the government. I am curious on why MP&F and its Cooley subsidiary appear to be the only contractors not making donations back to the collective. Says a lot when even the hired flak has more morals and ethics than a lobbying group wanting more money and stuff. Particularly this particular group of failed journalist and communications graduates.
we cant all be edgy and new like the city paper and southcomm. remember when pith was something other than a tool to pimp lame city paper stories?
But in that case, Silverman probably ought to refrain from the high-minded lectures on ethics. If he can't say whether his pooh-bahs are going to dump $15,000 into a controversial political campaign, then he ought to keep his mouth shut.
There are many reasons to complain about Silverman's editorial product, but he was asked a question and he tried to answer it and be transparent. It wasn't perfect, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt for making the effort.
The real crime, as Bruce notes, is that the newspaper's leaders don't get the idea of ethics and, as Andy notes, they hung "Silverman and the editorial staff out to dry."
We can think whatever we want about Silverman, but he's not the problem here.
Jim, I referred to his self-righteous column after the news about taxpayers paying for MP&F to coach Gail Kerr. If at that time, he knew he couldn't speak for the ethics of his superiors, then he should have just kept quiet. Alternatively, he could have tossed in a line in his column like "I can't speak for those scumballs in the ad department but ..."
