Pages

10.22.2006

Arcata Eye - Sources and six-packs - August 4, 2003

The Arcata Eye
Opinions: August 4, 2003

Sources and six-packs
By Kevin L. Hoover

Two words sum up Roger Rodoni's reaction to his financial arrangements with Pacific Lumber being outed:

Caught.

Flailing.

Voters may rightly be concerned that their representative apparently suffers from reading and comprehension problems, since he claims the Fair Political Practices Commission has cleared him of inappropriate conduct. Let's hope he pays better attention to county business than he has the FPPC correspondence.

But if Rog needs help with the first two of the "three Rs," he's sure doing all right with the third, given his highly favorable financial relationship with a major corporation whose local issues he votes on.

With regard to former Eye reporter Daniel Mintz's much-publicized ethical objections, a few observations:

News tips fly in from all over, their origins sometimes unknown and usually unimportant as long as any resulting news story is independently verified and presented with full context. There is an obvious problem with disclosing confidential sources, as Daniel purports to have done.

In fact, I first heard of Daniel's ethical crusade on receiving calls from another local newspaper and radio station about the matter. He went to them, naming an individual as our confidential source, before raising any objections with his editor.

When he did, the next day, he told me that reporting on the unsolicited check and our news tipsters should be "a group decision" by himself, me and other local editors, and suggested that I hire his roommate to write the story. Presumably, I would be paying the roommate to betray our sources. I declined.

There are people in our office and on the phone virtually every week speaking off the record and confidentially about stuff, and that's the way it's going to be. The public is entitled to have a comfort level when communicating privately with us, and now, once again, they may be secure in the knowledge that no one here is going to phone another newspaper and rat them out.

What if Mayor Bob Ornelas was a source for the Rodoni story? I wonder what Daniel would have done if Deep Throat had approached him with Watergate tips. Written a story naming the turncoat in the Nixon administration? Woodward and Bernstein favored a different approach.

If Rodoni discovers evidence that Ornelas rents 9,000 acres for $350 a month from a corporation who's issues he votes on in Arcata, I hope he forwards the info to us so we can verify it and do a story on it. Whether or not something as scandalous as a conflict of interest on that scale proved true - as it did with Roger - we'd never divulge any source's identity, as it would be irrelevant.

Anyone who does this job for more than two days swiftly realizes that legions of politicians, employees, businesspeople and others are ready, willing and sometimes even able to point out alleged misfeasances by their rivals. Our job is to check this stuff out, and, if there's anything to it and it matters, tell the readers. That's what we did.

Daniel has gotten a lot of mileage from saying he resigned from the Eye over principle, but the fact is, the day after I found out he'd gone telling tales of what he thought happened here in the newsroom, his key no longer fit the door. No news organization can function with people around who think it's OK to shop its sources around to other news outlets.

Here's a twist: Being the careful journalist that he is, Hank Sims ran the draft Rodoni story by Daniel for pre-publication feedback as to whether it was, to use a recently discredited phrase, fair and balanced. Daniel voiced no concerns to anyone at the time over sources or torn-up checks - other than to say Hank did the right thing - and Hank later thanked him for the consultation with a six-pack of microbrew, which Daniel accepted.

Anyway, I think Jeff Knapp's suggestion that we write about it when people send in provocative items is a worthy one, except that we get all kinds of things in the mail, from taunts to threats to food to checks, and I reserve the right not to glorify unwanted submissions with a news story.

So, long story short, the Eye didn't take any outside money, we didn't disclose any confidential sources, we offered our readers a first-class investigative piece about an elected official and the only person who took any foamy gratuity from the whole deal is Roger Rodoni's favorite reporter.

###

Follow up - it is important to note that after all the attacks, after the filing of FPPC complaints, Roger Rodoni was cleared by the FPPC. Hank Sims became the editor of the North Coast Journal. Mintz's stories once again appear in the EYE, as well as the McKinleyville Press and Garberville's Independent.
2/17/05 Northcoast Journal RODONI CLEARED:

1 comment:

Rose said...

For the record - from a March 1, 2007 discussion on another blog:

I love the Arcata Eye! For years we had the Arcata Union, which set an example for local newspapers. Now we have the always-interesting, thought-provoking and incisive Arcata Eye. Since its beginning in 1996 I haven't missed an issue. Thank you for being there.
# posted by sunnybrae girl : Wed Feb 28, 09:07:00 PM PST

I liked the Eye until 2003 when Hoover was caught accepting a $1,000 payola to have a reporter write a hit piece on Rob Arkley.
# posted by Anonymous : Wed Feb 28, 09:19:00 PM PST
Wed Feb 28, 09:19:00 PM PST:

Your first problem is that you have your facts wrong. So I wonder if you are Anon.R.Mous because he is infamous for this.

The piece wasn't about Arkley. It was about Roger Rodoni's relationship with Palco.

A woman connected to the Alliance for Ethical Business, Linda Wright, sent a $1,000 check to the Eye after the story was published in June 2003. (Apparently the AEB is not concerned about ethics in journalism.)

Somehow, Bob Ornelas, mayor of Arcata at the time, brokered the deal. When word of the check got out, Hoover claimed in an interview with James Faulk the check was unsolicited and that he tore it up as soon as it arrived.

But nobody really believed Hoover. Yes, the check was torn up, but only after the scandal was exposed. It was all pretty fishy. Daniel Mintz suddenly resigned from the Eye in protest.

Maybe Kevin would care to explain it to us.
# posted by Anonymous : Wed Feb 28, 09:53:00 PM PST

This person basically has it correct, but goes awry near the end.

The check was unsolicited, and sent innocently, I believe, by a nice lady who thought she was commissioning a grad student to do research or something. She was angry about what she believed is a too-close "sweetheart" relationship between Rodoni and Palco. Some people still believe that exists; others don't.

At the time, Hank was stringing for us, and had total clarity that no money of this nature could be accepted. So did Mintz. These guys are Grade A journalists and knew such a thing would be radioactive. Maybe it doesn't even take a Grade A journalist, but one who has a level of common sense that sometimes eludes me.

I didn't like the way Dan'l handled the matter at the time, and we had a tiff. We still probably don't agree on that aspect of things, but since we're adults, we got over it.

Hank destroyed the check immediately, not after word got out as the above writer states. On receiving it, he tore the check in half and sent it back to the lady with a "thanks, but no thanks" note. I never even saw the infernal thing.

How this started out was that I had heard that someone was willing to finance research into the Palco/Rodoni connection, and I, naive idiot that I was (am), didn't see any problem with ascertaining whether or not there was corruption afoot if the means were available. I woulda done the same with any of the supes, or city councilmembers for that matter, who may have been implicated in wrongdoing.

On thing that was never explained to my satisfaction with regard to this sitch are that I'm basically an ingrate. I could have taken the money, ascertained the facts and, if they warranted, exonerated Roger and disappointed this lady. If she thought she was commissioning a hit piece (though I don't think she was), we would have merrily let her down.

In a way - go ahead and call this rationalization if you want - I didn't see much difference between using her money to do research and using subscribers' and advertisers' money to elucidate facts that might upset them. This is something we do all the time - stories that don't necessarily reflect well on readers with special interests. And yet they keep on buying ads and subscribing, which is immensely validating.

But what Hank and Dan'l knew right off was that if the facts showed Rog in the wrong, it would have looked like a commisioned hit piece because of the financial backing. After all, when Destructo Industries pays for prestigious university studies, somehow they always produce a favorable result for the underwriter and their earth-wrecking product. So the story's credibility and moral force would have been undermined from the beginning. Why the hell didn't I realize that? I must have been too busy designing a psychedelic front page or something.

Sigh. This was a fairly catastrophic cock-up on my part, because I didn't shout from the rooftops that I woudn't take any non-subscription or advertising dollars to do what we do.

In the fullness of time, what I feel worst about is any besmirchal-by-association with me of Hank and Daniel, who knew which way was up from square one. I'd like to note that this incident was but one of many asinine mistakes I've made over the years trying to keep the newspaper going.

What I really worry about every week isn't this, but giving my readers the straight deal, despite limitations on resources, stamina, equipment and sometimes, my inexperience and retardation. After 11 years, they seem to know this and keep buying the newspaper with the dollars they earn at their day jobs. For this, I owe them my best efforts and as long as they can put up with me, I'll keep making new mistakes and delivering the goods as best I can.

That's all I got folks.
# posted by Kevin L. Hoover : Wed Feb 28, 11:59:00 PM PST

Thanks, Kevin. I am satisfied with your explanation and appreciate you took the time to address the issue. The incident has always troubled me because I did not buy the explanation that Wright sent a check unsolicited and then there was Ornelas' involvement.

Wed Feb 28, 09:53:00 PM PST
# posted by Anonymous : Thu Mar 01, 07:20:00 AM PST