Messy Situation at USA Today p.

By: Debra Gersh

Newspaper, denounced by black community for lapse in ethics in handling of story and photo on youth gangs, demotes editor who wrote it; demoted editor now plans to sue the paper for libel
A JOURNALIST PUNISHED by USA Today for allegedly arranging a posed photo of gang members with their guns plans to file a libel suit if published statements about him are not retracted.
Reporter Richard O. Price maintains he was libeled by the newspaper and its editor, Peter Prichard, in stories in USA Today and comments to other publications about the issue.
Price's attorney, John Shubin of Shubin & Bellas, Miami, has written to the paper seeking a correction or retraction. Such a request is required by California law, where Price intends to sue, pursuant to filing a libel or defamation claim, Shubin explained.
"Gannett and USA Today have rejected all attempts to settle the prospective litigation and have made it perfectly clear that they have no intention of publishing a retraction," Shubin said.
In addition, some of the young men featured in the photograph and the community activist who helped set up the interview and photo shoot also have sent a letter asking for a retraction from the newspaper.
According to attorney Daniel Gunning of Encino, Calif., who represents community activist Calvin Shears (CaShears) and three of the young men pictured, his clients do not consider sufficient the second-day story about the guns-for-jobs initiative, the clarification that ran two days after the original story or the op-ed space devoted to CaShears' side of events.
Gunning told E&P that his clients are seeking a public apology from USA Today at a press conference in Washington, as well as a front-page story that sets the record straight. If the newspaper does not meet that request, they will sue.
USA Today president and publisher Tom Curley said they have received communication from the attorney and will evaluate his clients' demands prior to responding.
"The defamatory nature of the material arises from the fact that the entire tenor and tone . . . is that the five individuals who appear therein endorse and subscribe to the violent and threatening attitudes expressed in the article, the heading and the caption," Gunning wrote in a letter to USA Today executives.
"However, as you know," he wrote. "the five individuals were brought together to be photographed by USA Today for an entirely different purpose and that in posing for the photograph, they did not intend to comment upon or express an opinion concerning the community's attitudes relative to the Rodney King trial. In addition, they do not endorse the attitudes expressed by others in the article or attributed to them by the caption to the photograph."
During a telephone interview, Gunning said, "These are young kids who've grown up in a bad environment and they're trying to make a change."
Gunning's clients, he said, also deny the specific words or opinions attributed to them regarding potential violence, although he said they did speak to Price about some of the issues addressed in the article. He stressed that his clients were expressing their own opinions about what might occur, but were not advocating violent action.
When asked why his clients had such easy accessibility to guns if they did not condone violence, Gunning explained that in certain neighborhoods weapons are used defensively, not only offensively.
"It's almost a necessity in that environment," he said, adding that his clients put themselves at risk by not carrying guns.
Ironically, attorneys for the newspaper and its parent company reportedly have sought Price's cooperation in responding to that retraction demand, Shubin said.
"Mr. Price is willing to cooperate with Gannett and USA Today only to the extent that it does not impede his ability to vindicate his reputation," Shubin explained. "Dick Price has always stood behind the quotes contained in his article."
The imbroglio began when USA Today ran a cover story by Price, then Western editor, on Feb. 16 about potential violence in Los Angeles pending the outcome of Rodney King's lawsuit against four police officers accused of violating his civil rights by beating him without cause or restraint.
When a jury from the first trial on the issue found the officers innocent of using excessive force, an unprecedented wave of violence and rioting engulfed South Central Los Angeles.
The Feb. 16 USA Today story was accompanied by a photograph of five young black men, some holding weapons, staring menacingly at the camera.
Over the photo was the headline, "Gangs put L.A. on edge." The cutline read, in part, "Bravado: Los Angles gangs say riots are certain if white police officers are acquitted of violating Rodney King's civil rights. And 'there will be more shooting.' "
The cutline also identified by name the five young men in the picture.
As soon as the photo appeared, the trouble began.
The young men said they posed only for what they believed was a story about a proposed guns-for-jobs program that planned to reward them with jobs for turning in their weapons.
Price, however, told E&P that he interviewed them both for the guns-for-jobs story, which ran the next day, Feb. 17, and for his main story, which sought to chronicle the mood of the gangs. He said there was never any intention to mislead the gang members or the newspaper about the photo.
Reaction, however, was swift and condemnation plenty, from private and public citizens alike.
One of the first to express concern over the photo was Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who already was disturbed by media coverage of events in her Los Angeles district.
In February, Waters told a meeting of California newspaper publishers she was concerned that media coverage of two trials ? the King case and the youths charged with beating truck driver Reginald Denny during the rioting ? would "seek to polarize and sensationalize, rather than illuminate and inform" (E&P, Feb. 20, P. 10).
As soon as she saw the USA Today photo, Waters "immediately had the notion this isn't right," explained her press secretary, Patrick Lacefield.
During a press conference later that day on urban youth empowerment legislation, Waters was asked about the photo and told reporters what she had learned from her district office in Los Angeles.
In addition, Lacefield said Waters' office received a number of calls from USA Today staffers, many of them black, who were upset and saw the congresswoman as a point person on the issue.
After learning of Waters' statements, USA Today's publisher Tom Curley called and set up a private meeting with the congresswoman on Feb. 24.
Curley said he decided to call Waters after hearing about her comments at the press conference. He told E&P that he wanted Waters to know the actions USA Today was taking, and he wanted to ask her what could be done to rectify the situation within the community.
According to Curley, Waters told him she appreciated the meeting and she said she hoped the newspaper would report on some of the positive things that were happening in the area.
Now, Waters "feels, given their [USA Today] admission they made a mistake and the disciplinary action taken against the editor, they've done what they can do," Lacefield said. "We hope their coverage will be less sensationalistic and delve deeper into the causes of unrest and also show the positive side."
Other California politicians weighed in against USA Today.
In a letter to the newspaper, which it published, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley called the story "the most reprehensible and irresponsible lapse of journalistic ethics I have witnessed in a long time."
The paper also published a letter from Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who called the story "a shameless example of reckless disregard for law and order in an effort to sell newspapers stained with the criminally imposed blood of innocent victims."
Letters from private citizens condemning the paper also were published.
Price was suspended without pay for a month and demoted to reporter, with an accompanying $15,000-a-year cut in salary.
On Feb. 18, two days after the original story and the day after the guns-for-jobs article, USA Today published a clarification that said the first story and caption should have mentioned that "at least three gang members told USA Today that they planned to turn their guns in to a jobs-for-guns program."
It did not end there, however.
On March 1, the newspaper's entire op-ed page was devoted to two lengthy versions of what happened.
One was written by CaShears, who had arranged the photo and interview to promote his guns-for-jobs idea.
The other was penned by Joe Urschel, USA Today managing editor for special projects and an author of the paper's ethics policy.
Also on the page were two photos, one showing the young men holding their handguns in their open palms with CaShears in the middle, and the other, which ran with the story, showing them alone, fingers on triggers, ammunition flung over one's shoulder.
According to CaShears' version, he called Price about his guns-for-jobs idea because he had worked with him before and he thought USA Today coverage would give his program national attention.
CaShears wrote that he had planned a press conference announcing the guns-for-jobs initiative on Feb. 17, but Price convinced him to set up a mock shoot earlier so the story could run the morning of the press conference, setting it up for more coverage.
Agreeing, CaShears said he went to the young men and explained to them what was happening. Since they weren't really going to give up their guns that day, they didn't bring them.
"Richard said it would only be effective if we could show the guns," CaShears wrote.
Although two of the young men could get their guns right away, another was about 10 miles away in Long Beach, so Price offered to drive them.
CaShears said he was devastated by what appeared in the paper, and drove to the projects to face the young men and explain what happened. Aside from their feelings of betrayal, both the young men and CaShears began to receive death threats, he wrote.
"USA Today took a beautiful thing and turned it into something really ugly," CaShears wrote.
Urschel's investigation found a more tangled web of miscommunication and a more "elusive" truth.
"On its own, the photograph was accurate," Urschel wrote. "None of the subjects in the photo have denied being gang members or having access to guns. In question are the circumstances under which the picture was taken."
According to Urschel, Price told CaShears he would interview him for the guns-for-jobs story or include it in a larger story. Price's interest, however, was in interviewing gang members for the "mood on the streets" article, and CaShears acted as a go-between.
At the photo shoot, Price interviewed the young men, both about the mood of the gangs and the guns-for-jobs initiative.
According to Urschel, Price's editor in Los Angeles told him to do two separate stories, instead of including the jobs-for-guns information in the mood piece.
During the editing process, communication between California and USA Today headquarters in Rosslyn, Va., apparently broke down to the point where editors in Virginia were unaware of the guns-for-jobs program or the situation surrounding the photo, Urschel explained.
Urschel quoted editor Prichard as saying Price was the only one who knew all the facts about the photo and story.
"The bottom line," Prichard was quoted by Urschel, "is he failed to let his editors know the circumstances under which that picture was taken . . . . There is an element of trust that is essential between editors and reporters. All the safeguards in the world cannot protect you if your reporter fails to inform you fully."
Urschel noted that "The whole truth is elusive. No employer had ever agreed to provide jobs if the men did give up their guns. Even if they had disarmed, some gang members admitted they could always get more guns and always would remain PJs [gang members]."
In light of the pending litigation, Prichard declined to say much, but in earlier comments to the New York Times he was quoted as saying the paper ran the two versions because "We made a mistake, so we thought we ought to be fair to all involved."
Prichard did tell E&P, however, that the Urschel article was a news story, not an opinion piece, and ran on the commentary page simply because that page has more space available.
Urschel was chosen to write the paper's version not only because he helped write USA Today's ethics policy, but also because he "could do a good job," Prichard said.
Prichard also said there would be no retraction.
On March 8, Price's attorney sent letters via overnight delivery to Prichard, USA Today president and publisher Tom Curley, and Gannett Co. president and CEO John Curley demanding a retraction or correction on a series of statements.
In his letter, Shubin noted a Feb. 19 news story that quoted Prichard as saying Price had committed an "ethical lapse," and that the statement was made in connection with announcing measures taken against Price.
Although not specifically mentioned in the letter, the quotes and date of comments refer to an article by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.
Shubin also noted that by running CaShears' article on March 1, the paper implicitly endorsed "the libelous statements of CaShears," and "endorsed the character assassination of Mr. Price that had been set in motion earlier by Mr. Prichard's statement."
Shubin gave USA Today three weeks from the date of the letter to retract the statements in "substantially as conspicuous a manner" as they first appeared.
Tom Curley's response, dated March 9, read simply, "USA Today stands by its statements about Mr. Price."
In a telephone interview, Shubin told E&P his client was a "sacrificial lamb," and Shubin said the paper let Price take the fall for the wave of negative reaction that followed publication of the story and photo.
The issue has been a fairly constant topic of communication in the USA Today newsroom, where some reporters are unhappy with the way the situation was handled.
Following the controversy, reporters found fresh copies of the USA Today ethics policy in their mailboxes with a memo from Prichard suggesting they refresh their knowledge of it.
A number of his colleagues feel Price ? described as a good writer but something of a rogue ? should either have been fired or given the benefit of the doubt.
In a lengthy and candid interview with E&P, Price did not deny that his behavior has not always been sterling and his manner always polite, but, he pointed out, he is a good journalist with no marks on his professional record.
In fact, Price said the first indication he had done anything wrong came on Feb. 18, two days after the photo ran, when he got a computer message saying management was considering how he would be punished.
When he asked what he had done, Price said he was told he was the only one who knew about the guns for jobs and he should have let someone know.
Price said he told editors in Rosslyn that was not true, and in Urschel's article it was revealed that only editors at USA Today headquarters were unaware of the additional story. Those on the West Coast reportedly knew the situation.
"All I expected of any newspaper I worked for is not that they blindly endorse me, but give me a full and thorough hearing," Price said, maintaining that his written reviews each year have been "top category."
Saying this was not an ethical lapse, but perhaps a misunderstanding on the part of the gang members and CaShears, Price believes the paper made a "hasty and panicked reaction."
In addition, Price pointed out, "One of the things that's become accepted as fact was that photo was misleading. The photo was never misleading. When the photographer choreographed the picture, what I saw was consistent with the article" about the mood of the gangs.
He noted also that "When you've been working with gangs that long, you cannot go in, lie to gang members, and then blatantly display that lie on the front page of a national newspaper."
Price admitted that maybe he did something wrong when he drove one of the gang members to Long Beach to get his gun, but Price said he saw it as "nothing more than a courtesy. They didn't have a car. That's all it was."
When they got back, Price said he watched as free-lance photographer Bob Riha Jr. set up the photo shoot.
"I was not that worried about the pictures," he said. "I was the writer on the story. I was just interested in the interviews."
The only time Price said he got involved with the photo chosen was when he called the desk in Rosslyn to ask which shot editors had picked to run with his story. He wanted to be sure, as is the paper's policy, that at least one person in the photo was quoted in the story.
"In journalism today, there's a real fear-chill factor with regard to race," Price commented. "I think sometimes that obliterates the truth. There was more concern about the image of that photograph than the truth of that photograph."
As to CaShears' contention that the shoot was set up to coincide with his press conference, Price said simply that "he and I have a factual dispute on that."
Price said the photo shoot was scheduled according to when his story was due, not because of a press conference.
Noting that "no one voiced any objection" while the pictures were being taken, Price wondered why, if the photographer thought he was shooting a guns-for-jobs story, he would shoot the pictures he did.
"Anyone in that room who believed that was a guns-for-jobs picture should've been screaming. I did not because it was a mood piece. When I walked away from there I was entirely comfortable with the interviews and the pictures."
Price begged to differ with critics who charged that the young men would not have posed like that with their guns, faces and names in the paper, unless it was for the guns-for-jobs story.
"A lot of gangs love publicity," he said, noting that "a lot of those guys would do it for money anyway. If you want to take a photo that's violent, like that one, and don't care about ethics, you pay for it. During that story we had number of gangs willing to pose for money. We rejected them."
Price also argued that the photograph is not enough evidence for any legal action against the young men, and retaliation in the neighborhood was unlikely, even though in the past "gangs got retaliated on just for being mentioned."
"Under the normal rules of life, one would think that you certainly wouldn't pose in a picture holding a gun like that," Price said. "The reality is they just do anyway. The fact is that to some degree, any attention is better than none. Just the sheer idea of attention is such a huge deal. It's a different set of rules."
Price, who said he does not feel USA Today was out to get him ? he believes he made a "convenient target, and they were looking for a target" ? said the purpose of this legal action "is not to trash USA Today."
"I'm hoping I can continue to function with USA Today," he said. "I'm positive about my work, and I plan to do a good job. I'm not bitter at all. I can understand how it all happened, but it's still wrong."
Nor, he said, is he "interested in getting rich." Price said all he wanted was what he asked for ? "some form of apology and reinstatement.
Price said he does not feel "saved" by the fact he was not fired outright.
"I do not feel saved when the editor of the paper, without any hearing, just on its own merits, can tell the world I committed an ethical lapse and then, 10 days later, [Urschel] says the facts are elusive," Price told E&P.
"I don't feel like I came out of this very well," he added. "There's no way I can ever completely salvage my reputation."