UPDATE: 'Blade' Editor Explains Reporter's Suspension

By: Joe Strupp A veteran reporter at The Blade Of Toledo, Ohio, has been suspended after admitting that he wrote an anonymous letter to the Pulitzer Prize Board claiming the newspaper's "Coingate" series was tainted, E&P learned today. The paper confirmed this. A statement on the matter was released Wednesday evening by Executive Editor Ron Royhab.

The critical letter was sent just weeks before the board gathered to choose the Pulitzer Prize winners in April. The much-praised "Coingate" series failed to win the Public Service prize, for which it had been a finalist, although there is no evidence the letter had any effect. But the letter then drew notice when Royhab hired a private investigator last month to track down the letter's author.

George Tanber, a 14-year staffer who most recently worked out of the paper's Monroe, Mich. bureau, told E&P earlier today that he had admitted authorship of the letter Tuesday night in a two-page statement he provided to Blade editors. He said he was suspended earlier today, without pay, after another meeting at the paper.

He declined to comment on the situation, but provided E&P with a copy of his statement.

Blade assistant managing editor Luann Sharp confirmed that Tanber had admitted his authorship of the letter, but declined to comment further saying editors had yet to discuss the issue with newsroom staff. "We are going to try to do it this afternoon," she said. When asked if Tanber would be fired she said, "we are still analyzing our options on that." Royhab declined to comment on the matter.

In his statement to editors Tuesday, Tanber explained that he wrote the letter to the board "because, as a reporter, I am obligated to expose actions that violate the code of ethics set down by the Society of Professional Journalists." He then added that "the six Coingate reporters were not the focus of the complaint. 'Coingate' was brilliantly researched and reported. The problem lies elsewhere. The letter I penned speaks for itself: the ethics violations are clearly detailed."

In his statement, Tanber added that he "did not sign the letter because I wanted the focus to be on the message, not on me. But I did provide an e-mail address to the Pulitzer board to contact me for further information or questions. No one did.

"I have chosen to come forward because I don't want this investigation to continue at the expense of others. Already, some colleagues and others have been unfairly blamed and targeted. The responsibility is mine alone."

The anonymous 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."

Royhab, when he learned of the letter, wrote a lengthy rebuttal, denying all charges, and sent it to the Pulitzer board. "The content [of the letter] is inaccurate and false," he told E&P last month.

He then hired an investigator to find the culprit. Among other things, Tanber's computer records were seized. "We are trying to get to the bottom of something we find to be quite disturbing," Royhab told E&P at the time. "Wouldn't you want to know if someone is trying to injure your reputation?"

Royhab angered some in the local guild when he suggested that the anonymous letter may have been written to disparage the newspaper at a time when heated contract negotiations are underway.

Tanber ended his statement yesterday by writing, "I believe that to work in this profession is an honor and a privilege. To seek the truth and report it fully, honestly, and accurately is a requirement that must be adhered to at all times and without exception."

Wednesday evening, the Blade released a statement under Royhab's name.

"The Blade?s investigation into who wrote the anonymous letter designed to discredit our Coingate entry to this year?s Pulitzer Prize competition has identified the author as George Tanber, a veteran Blade reporter," the statement read.

"After a one-month investigation, Tanber yesterday finally acknowledged in a letter to Ron Royhab, The Blade?s vice president-executive editor, that he was the author of the letter sent to the Pulitzer board.

"In a fact-finding meeting with Tanber this morning, based on information we obtained and he provided, he was suspended indefinitely without pay, pending further action.

"In its investigation, The Blade has learned that since last summer George Tanber fed reporters at Editor & Publisher and Salon.com with information, some that was untrue, about The Blade and some of its staff members. He also assisted them in reporting stories that appeared on their Web sites. He communicated with Editor & Publisher using his Blade laptop [under an alias]....

"We conducted a very thorough investigation since April 3 when we were notified that the anonymous letter was sent to Pulitzer. Yesterday, The Blade interviewed several staff members whose names surfaced during our investigation either in e-mails or in phone conversations. We interviewed staff members and non-staff members, including members of the community who George Tanber contacted and then represented himself as a Blade reporter doing a story about our Coingate coverage, when in fact he had no such assignment.

"Yesterday?s letter from George Tanber contains inaccuracies, as did the anonymous letter he sent to Pulitzer.

"His letter yesterday stated: 'As articles on ethics questions related to Coingate emerged last year in Editor & Publisher, Salon.com, and elsewhere, it pained me to see The Blade portrayed in a similar light.'
However, The Blade?s investigation has found that George Tanber was the source of inaccurate information that appeared in those publications.

"Further, in his letter yesterday, George Tanber said The Blade?s six Coingate reporters 'were not the focus' of his anonymous letter. He wrote: 'Coingate was brilliantly researched and reported. 'Yet, in his anonymous letter dated March 28 to Pulitzer, he wrote: 'In reality, Coingate has proved to be journalism at its worse.'?

In the many months since the E&P column, which had multiple sources, appeared last August, The Blade has never asked for a correction or retraction or even identified what was "inaccurate" in it.