Search for Inside Critic Adds Strain to Guild Talks at 'The Blade'

By: Joe Strupp Nearly a month after The Blade of Toledo, Ohio hired a private investigator to track down who sent an anonymous letter to the Pulitzer Board claiming the newspaper's "Coingate" series was tainted, the writer has yet to be found.

But according to local Newspaper Guild leaders, the investigation, which is rumored to have included the seizure of several staffers' computers, is upsetting newsroom workers who see the move as showing a lack of trust in employees. E&P first reported on this story last month.

"I am perplexed at the time and effort they are putting into this," said Lillian Covarrubias, president of the Toledo Newspaper Guild Local 34043. "It makes the Blade look bad that we are pursuing this. It sounds like sour grapes."

In addition, the search is adding more stress to current guild negotiations that have already included management accusations that the letter might have been sent by the union to hurt the paper's Pulitzer chances. In a related move, the Blade declined to run an ad from the guild congratulating those involved in the Coingate coverage, which was a Pulitzer finalist last month.

"He declined to even look at the ad," said Tom Simpson, a guild vice president and national advertising representative for the paper, referring to Blade general manager Joe Zerby. "He said they had no interest in putting an advertisement in for the guild until this investigation is over."

Zerby declined to comment on the ad, saying "I don't talk about the guild or anything related to contract talks." The guild has since posted the ad on its Web site, www.toledoguild.org.

The half-page ad, which Covarrubias said would have cost nearly $4,000, included no contract-related commentary. It showed the guild and the CWA logos, along with the names of six staffers involved in the series. It did note that the guild represents "600 unionized men and women who write, sell, print and distribute the Blade each day."

"The company declined the ad and said it was too controversial," Covarrubias said, noting it would have run on May 5. "That is all they said. I said 'we run girlie ads [for lingerie] all the time and they get more reaction than this'." Simpson said the paper ran a similar guild ad two years ago after the paper won a Pulitzer for its heralded Tiger Force series.

The anonymous Pulitzer letter, an eight-page document dated March 28, was titled "Deception and Coverup Taint Award-Winning Coingate Series." It claimed that the Blade was aware of alleged illegal campaign contributions by GOP fundraiser Tom Noe prior to the 2004 presidential election. Noe was the chief architect of the Coingate scandal in which tens of millions of dollars in state funds were lost in a rare coin investment scheme that has already resulted in several convictions, including that of Noe.

"Ten months before the 2004 presidential election--and 15 months before The Blade published its first Coingate story--the paper's then-politics reporter Fritz Wenzel was tipped off about Tom Noe's alleged campaign contribution scam in support of the Bush campaign and about problems with Noe's coin investments for the state," the letter began. "Wenzel, with close ties to Noe, sat on the story and did not tell Blade editors what he knew."

After E&P and others began looking into the matter, the letter continued, "Blade editors, fearful of having their prize investigation discredited, conspired to cover up what they knew and when."

On April 18, Blade Editor Ron Royhab held a staff meeting, and disclosed the anonymous letter, along with a letter he received from Pulitzer Administrator Sig Gissler about it -- and his own response to Gissler refuting the charges by the inside critic.

Royhab also announced at that time that the Blade had hired an investigator to find out who had written it.

"I am convinced the letter was written from inside our newsroom by people, who for reasons that elude me, believe they can advance their interests in an on-going labor dispute by bringing the newspaper into disrepute," Royhab said at the time. That comment sparked an angry response from union leaders, who issued a statement saying, "The company's haste to blame The Guild and the collective bargaining process for this loss is misguided and insulting."

Four weeks later, the investigation continues to spark concern, Covarrubias said. "We care that they are spending so much time on this rather than on negotiations," she told E&P Monday. "Whatever they do, it will not get them back the Pulitzer."

Royhab, who has declined to comment in recent weeks about the progress of the investigation, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Guild negotiations have been ongoing since February, but have reached a more sensitive stage since the previous contract ended on March 21, Covarrubias said. The last contract, a three-year agreement, included no salary increases. She said the company's latest proposal seeks a 10% salary reduction, as well as a 50% cut in company contributions to health premiums.

"It is unlike anything I have ever encountered before," Simpson said of the current contract talks. "They have no interest in considering anything we propose." The last bargaining session occurred on May 10, with the next set for May 31.

Once the anonymous letter mystery is over, Covarrubias believed the contract talks would likely reach a better level. "I think the tenor of the newsroom will change if and when they end it," she said of the search. "I hope it is not a [guild] member."