Time for another Truth Bomb!
Salem's community newspaper, the Statesman Journal, no longer cares about accuracy in its reporting and editorializing.
I've got good reasons for saying this after filing several ethics complaints with both the Statesman Journal and the Gannett Corporation — which owns the paper.
Remember when the newspaper had a "corrections" feature? And Statesman Journal staff wanted to make stories as accurate and truthful as possible? As a long-time subscriber (37 years), I sure do.
Those days are gone. Below you can read solid evidence for this conclusion.
In May of this year I filed an ethics complaint with Garrett Flynn, an attorney who handles complaints about ethics violations for Gannett.
I did this after getting no response from Statesman Journal executives about my well-documented September 2013 complaint that editorial page editor Dick Hughes had knowingly and willfully published false information about the proposed "land grab" of part of Riverfront Park for an access road to a Pringle Square apartment complex.
Before and after Hughes' editorial appeared, I'd told him that National Park Service approval of this proposal wasn't a maybe; it was a must. I knew this because I'd talked with the state government official who coordinates the applications, and the City of Salem had stated this in a staff report.
Because Hughes ignored the fact that the "6-f conversion process" would take 1-2 years or more, during which the Pringle Square developers would be unable to use any portion of Riverfront Park for access to the development, the editorial's insistence that construction of the apartments could start immediately was clearly wrong.
Yet Hughes, executive editor Michael Davis, and other members of the editorial board were utterly uncaring about having this error pointed out to them. I got some dismissive comments back from Dick Hughes, but he didn't offer any evidence that I was wrong and he was right.
So when someone told me that he'd made his own journalistic ethics complaint to Gannett about another instance of Statesman Journal flawed reporting, I learned how to contact Garrett Flynn. Here's my first email to him, sent in May 2014.
Mr. Flynn,
…I asked _______ how he made his complaint. I was directed to a Gannett website page that says you are the person who deals with journalistic ethics complaints.
This spurred me to share my own ethics complaint that was made directly to Statesman Journal executives in September 2013. I never heard back from them. At that time I wasn’t aware that an ethics complaint could be filed with you. So now I am sharing a PDF file of three email messages regarding what, in my view, is a clear violation of the Gannett Code of Ethics. Consider this a formal complaint.
In short, editorial page editor Dick Hughes and other Statesman Journal staff refused to correct serious factual errors in a 2013 draft editorial that were repeatedly pointed out to them — both before and after publication in the print newspaper.
Among other principles of ethical conduct in the Code of Ethics, I pointed out these in my third email to Statesman Journal staff where I requested an ethics inquiry:
We will hold factual information in opinion columns and editorials to the same standards of accuracy as news stories.
We will correct errors promptly.
I have attached a seven page PDF file that contains the content of the three emails sent to Statesman Journal staff. I added emphasis to the content
in boldface to make it easier for you to pick out the most pertinent parts.
Download Emails sent to SJ staff
You will note that I begin my first email with a mention that I have been a critic of the Statesman Journal because I care about the newspaper, having been a subscriber since 1977. I am not eager or pleased to be making this complaint to you, but I am concerned about a pattern of news and editorial page problems that seemingly violate journalistic ethics — where factual errors are pointed out to Statesman Journal staff, but corrections aren’t made.
…I’ll also take the liberty of sharing links to some blog posts I wrote about an earlier editorial episode regarding Dick Hughes which fits with the pattern of him ignoring factual information in his editorials. In fact, in the third blog link below I document that when Hughes was presented with clear factual errors, he yelled “This is just opinion!” At the time, as now, this struck me as a serious violation of editorial page writing.
I’ve been an avid regular blogger for ten years. I’ve written thousands of posts over that time. I always do my best to insure that what I write about is based on accurate factual information. Then my opinions are based on those facts. It deeply bothers me, as a “mere” blogger, to see the Statesman Journal failing to live up to those ethical standards. Here are the links:
“Statesman Journal allows errors in Measure 49 editorial"
“Salem’s newspaper gets an ‘F’ in journalism ethics”
“Statesman Journal endorsement of Romney: pathetic editorial”
I look forward to hearing from you. I’d be glad to clarify anything that isn’t clear in the material I’ve shared with you, or answer any questions you might have.
Sincerely,
Brian Hines
A few weeks later I added on another ethics complaint after Dick Hughes again mangled facts in an editorial. This time it was personal, because he screwed up a statement about me.
Garrett [Flynn], yesterday Dick Hughes, the editorial page editor at the Statesman Journal who is the focus of my previous ethics complaint, misquoted me in a lead Sunday editorial.
As before, I informed Mr. Hughes of the error and asked that a correction/apology appear in the newspaper. And as before, Mr. Hughes refused to correct an obvious factual error.
…Please forward this message to the Gannett headquarters staff who are dealing with my previous complaint about the 2013 failure of Mr. Hughes to acknowledge and correct another factual error in a Statesman Journal editorial.
Also, won’t I be hearing something back from Gannett staff, since my ethics complaints aren’t anonymous? When a customer contacts “customer service,” he/she expects to get a response. In my case, I consider that my Statesman Journal subscription entitles me to factual news and opinion. Yet I’m not getting when I paid for when SJ staff refuse to correct factual errors — hence, my complaints.
Thanks,
Brian Hines
Irritatingly, I never heard anything about the outcome of either Gannett ethics complaint. Mr. Flynn explained that the staff who handle these aren't obliged to tell the person making a complaint how it was handled. Hopefully Dick Hughes was required to get some remedial education in editorial writing, but I have no way of knowing if this happened.
This is ridiculous. But such is the sorry state of Gannett journalism these days.
I pointed out factual errors to Statesman Journal executives and was brushed off. I then complained to the Gannett central ethics coordinator, and heard nothing back. Apparently the policy at Gannett and the Statesman Journal is that truthfulness and accuracy in reporting/editorializing doesn't matter — only maximizing revenue does.
Pathetic.
As a continuation to this post I'll copy in my emails to Statesman Journal staff. Blunt words, but richly deserved.
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