Sacrificed? p.

By: Tony Case

Faced with threat of picketing, Vermont newspaper fires reporter for allegedly misrepresenting a race relations forum
REPORTER PAUL TEETOR recently covered a public forum on race relations for his Vermont newspaper, filed his story and did not give it another thought ? until the next day, when he was fired for allegedly misrepresenting the meeting.
Burlington Free Press editors concurred that his account "failed to meet our standards of fairness, accuracy and completeness," according to managing editor Judith Diebolt.
But Teetor maintains his article was accurate, that he is a victim of political correctness and that the paper "sacrificed" him to appease some high-powered local officials and to prevent a run-in with its racially sensitive parent company.
The question of accuracy arose over Teetor's relating that Rodney Patterson, an assistant to Burlington's mayor and an organizer of the discussion, who is black, "cut off" Ellen Norton, who is white, when she stood at a microphone to talk about race relations.
"If you're coming to the mike, we want you to come as a person of color, to share your ethnic experiences," Teetor quoted Patterson as saying.
Then, he wrote, "When Norton protested that she had a right to speak like everyone else, Patterson called for several volunteers, who escorted Norton out of the room."
A videotape of the forum shows that Patterson did interrupt Norton to request that she relinquish the microphone. It does not show whether she was led away.
Not only did Patterson complain to the paper about the story ? he threatened to organize a protest march outside the Free Press office if Teetor was not fired.
Patterson got what he wanted, but Diebolt insists that the dismissal was "absolutely not" the result of complaints from outside the paper. "We received no pressure from the community to do that," she said. "This was a decision that I made."

Avoiding a row

Meanwhile, Teetor saw his dismissal as a "preemptive action" by the Free Press to avoid a potential confrontation with Gannett Co., which owns the paper.
He says the Arlington, Va.-based conglomerate is "supersensitive" about how its newspapers report on minorities ? and especially so since a controversy arose earlier this year after it was revealed that a photo of threatening-looking young black men brandishing guns which appeared on Page One of its nationally circulated USA Today had been staged (E&P, March 27, P. 14).
A Gannett spokeswoman said the company had no comment on Teetor's contentions.
Teetor said his Free Press bosses "knew that the AP would cover [a protest of the paper] and move pictures on the national wire, and I don't think they wanted to deal with that. Instead, they sacrificed me."
Furthermore, he alleges, the paper defamed him in a follow-up news story, which amounted to a correction of his account.
In the piece, assistant managing editor Julie Metzger wrote that Teetor's article had "mischaracterized" the forum, and she went on to offer an alternative version of the night's events. Teetor supposed it was "designed to justify my firing and explain Patterson's behavior."

Media-free zone

Teetor may have been startled by his abrupt dismissal, but it was not the first time his bosses had surprised him.
Upon arriving at the forum on race relations, he learned that the Free Press had, as he put it, "handed over its First Amendment rights" by agreeing to the establishment of a media-free zone that allowed citizens to speak without being identified, quoted or photographed by the local press.
"It was unprecedented, and I was shocked," Teetor related. "To me, [the paper's editors] set themselves up for a fall. They said to Patterson, 'You're in control. You write the script here.' The problem was that the white woman [Norton] wasn't following the script. Any responsible news organization would say, 'Thanks, but no thanks.' "
However, Diebolt says representatives of the Free Press did not make any special agreements with the forum's organizers regarding coverage; in fact, it was made clear that the paper would report what public officials had to say at the gathering.
The editors did assure organizers that the paper would "handle it sensitively," she recalled.
Burlington has a considerable number of Vietnamese and Cambodian residents, and organizers of the forum were concerned about whether they would feel comfortable about expressing their opinions, according to Diebolt.
Teetor ? who has won several awards for his work, including the Vermont Press Association's Reporter of the Year Award for three consecutive years when he was at Vermont's Rutland Herald ? plans to sue his former employer if he does not get his job back.
His attorney sent a letter to lawyers for the Free Press that reads, "We are confident that we will be able to prove his termination was unlawful and that he was defamed by Gannett's employees and agencies."
It said the reporter was willing "to settle this matter in order to avoid protracted litigation" ? that is, if the newspaper reinstated him, gave him back pay, apologized publicly and reimbursed him for his attorney's fees.
In case the Free Press does not agree to these terms, Teetor has been looking for other reporting jobs.
Diebolt would not discuss Teetor's firing in-depth, calling it a personnel matter. "I can only tell you that discharging a newsroom employee typically involves progressive discipline," she said.
But Teetor maintains he has not been a problem employee. He said he was put on probation once because his bosses said he was not sufficiently productive but was quick to point out that he had been hired to do investigative pieces, which usually require more time to complete than other types of stories.
Teetor ? who describes himself as "very left of center" politically ? believes his situation demonstrates that political correctness has been taken too far. "I certainly believe that minorities have been discriminated against and we have to rectify that," he said, "but I don't think we have to go to the other extreme and say that everything every minority says is now right and everything a white person says is wrong."