Publisher admits error

By: David Noack Akron police chief at center of controversy

In a case of knowing but not telling, the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal admitted that its publisher and police reporter had been told by the city's police chief that his wife claimed he abused her, but a story didn't appear for nearly two months.
The paper published an account of the events last Tuesday as part of a series focusing on how the Akron Police Department investigated the abuse allegation. The story explained why the newspaper did not publish an article when allegation were first made last October. It wasn't until mid-December, when an anonymous tipster called another reporter at the paper to check out a specific police case file, that the story ran.
So far, fallout from the incident has included a public explanation from John L. Dotson Jr., the publisher, to readers about his role in the matter and Robert Hoiles, the police reporter, being reassigned. The case raises questions about whether a publisher has an obligation to pass along significant story tips to the newsroom and when and under what circumstances does a reporter make a pledge of confidentiality.
Media ethics observers say the paper did the right thing in admitting its mistakes and explaining the situation to readers but faulted the reporter for being too quick to offer confidentiality.
The chain of events that led to the paper's published admission, began October 15, when Dotson got a call from police chief Edward Irvine about his wife, Gevena, explaining that she was in the hospital and had accused him of pushing her. Irvine called Doston to see that if a story appeared, would he be treated fairly. Doston said he doesn't mettle in newsroom matters but would keep an eye out for the story. However, when the story never appeared on the news budget for several days, Dotson figured the story didn't pan out.
In his column to readers, Dotson says: "My philosophy as publisher has been to carefully separate my responsibilities on the business side from those I have on the news side. ? That is what guided my thinking when Ed Irvine called that afternoon back in October. Clearly, in hindsight, I was misled and may not have been as alert as I should have been to a significant possible news story involving a major department of our city government. I may have erred. If so, I can assure you, our readers, that I won't make the same mistake again."
While the police chief informed Dotson, he also told Hoiles, the paper's veteran police reporter. According to a story in the Beacon Journal, Hoiles says he's not quite sure when he was told by the chief last October that there was an investigation.
He recalls the chief saying to him that he wanted to tell him something in confidence, to which Hoiles agreed. "What am I suppose to do? Am I suppose to go back on my word?" Hoiles said in the Beacon Journal article. The paper reports that Hoiles has refused to discuss the details of his conversation with the police chief, other than to say he learned of the abuse complaint. However, the chief denies that he sought a pledge of confidentiality.
During a formal investigation into the abuse allegation made by the chief's wife, she recanted her story, saying her husband did not hurt her. "He didn't do anything to me," she says. "The reason I said this is because I was so embarrassed, you know, after I took my medication, that I had forgotten that I had taken it the previous morning, and I took another one that evening."
Another twist in the case was that the police file on the investigation had been misplaced and was not discovered and properly filed until Dec. 2. Bob Dyer, a columnist and staff writer for the paper's Sunday magazine, says he got an anonymous call on Dec. 10 telling him to check police incident report.
"This guy had worked with me and apparently trusted me not to reveal who he was. So I zoomed down and picked up the report and said "'Oh my God"' and came back to the office. It was late afternoon, and I considered making the calls, and I was afraid I would get a bunch of not availables, so we held it for a day and the next morning started working the phone," says Dyer. The story ran on Dec. 12. His story was about the spousal abuse allegation and did not touch on the journalistic aspect.
"As I was writing the story, a person from the city called up and tried to talk me out of writing it, saying, 'Look, it's old news; your publisher knew about it two months ago. The police reporter knew about it two months ago,'" recalls Dyer.
He then went to see the managing editor to find out what was going on. "My only concern at that point was whether the story was going to get in the paper," says Dyer.
Managing editor Glenn Guzzo says reporters should not be offering confidentiality about something they don't know anything about. "He should have told his editors what he knew and then put it in the hands of his editors as to how to proceed. If Bob needed to not be the one who handled the story because he already made a commitment that couldn't be broken, then we should have dealt with that. But in the absence of knowing that the police chief is being investigated for a potential felony, we were handcuffed until we could find out about it from someone else. When we did we got it in the paper," says Guzzo.
He says Hoiles has been moved to a general assignment beat. "He did not request a move, but when we indicated that we favored a move he did not resist," says Guzzo.
He says it's difficult to tell whether the credibility of the paper has been damaged. "Anytime you have to write about yourself in a way that doesn't reflect best on yourself, then you're risking some credibility, at least in the short term. I would hope that while the paper does not necessarily look good in this situation, it looks honest, and that in the long haul, it's going to be remembered that the paper had the courage to write about itself," says Guzzo.
Steve Geimann, who heads the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) ethics panel, commended the paper for admitting its role and mistakes in the controversy.
"They've done the right thing by admitting they made a mistake. I commend John for saying he learned a lesson, and it's never going to happen again. But in a case like this you've got to be very careful in granting confidentiality because it does really handcuff the newspaper," says Geimann.
He says it seems the police chief was trying to control how the information came out. "It was a case where the police chief was deliberately trying to co-opt the paper or attempting to engage key players in a confidentiality agreement that would prevent the story from getting out. That's not the reason why you grant someone confidentiality," says Geimann.

?(Editor & Publisher Web Site:http:www.mediainfo.com) [Caption]
?(copyright: Editor & Publisher May 8, 1999) [Caption & Photo]