NCJ - Journalism flap - July 24, 2003

Journalism flap
At a time when the integrity of journalists is under fire,
a controversy involving the Arcata Eye surfaces
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/072403/news0724.html#anchor481525
by KEITH EASTHOUSE
July 24, 2003

It's a murky tale, but a few things are clear.

A $1,000 check arrived at the offices of the Arcata Eye made out to freelance reporter Hank Sims. Its purpose was to fund an investigation into a potential conflict of interest involving Humboldt County Supervisor Roger Rodoni. Sims, by all accounts, tore up the check; he knew that accepting third-party payment was a no-no as it smacked of buying journalism. He went ahead and did the piece, and then received a modest payment from the Eye.

End of story? Not quite.

Daniel Mintz, who until recently wrote for the Eye, was disturbed when he learned about the episode.

He felt that the article Sims wrote, which revealed that Rodoni pays his landlord, the Pacific Lumber Co., a mere $350 a month in rent for a three-bedroom home on a 9,000-acre ranch, was fair and accurate.

But he thought another investigative story was needed about how the check came to arrive at the Eye in the first place. Why? Because a prominent Rodoni critic, Arcata Mayor Bob Ornelas, acted as a middle-man between the check writer, a Eureka woman named Linda Wright, and the newspaper.

"I was bothered by Ornelas' undue editorial influence," Mintz said last week.

Mintz said he was also bothered by "a lack of editorial oversight" by Arcata Eye Editor Kevin Hoover. How did things get so far along that a check was actually made out to Sims and sent? Mintz wondered. When Hoover decided not to authorize the follow-up story Mintz was proposing -- since Sims had not taken the money he didn't see what the issue was -- Mintz quit in protest.

When word about all of this got out, Rodoni claimed that the Eye had done a "hit piece" on him, although he has yet to identify any inaccuracies in the story.

Neither Sims nor Hoover would identify Ornelas as the person who communicated the information that someone in the community was willing to pay $1,000 for a story on Rodoni. However, in an interview earlier this week, Ornelas himself said he had played that role.

He said Wright contacted him after Ornelas had publicly questioned the legality of Rodoni voting against District Attorney Paul Gallegos' request in March for outside legal assistance in his fraud lawsuit against the Pacific Lumber Co.

"She had been very offended" by Rodoni's conduct at a previous public meeting, Ornelas said, and "wanted to know how she could help out." How that desire got translated into an offer of money is not clear.

What is known is that Ornelas, who had unsuccessfully tried to persuade the Arcata City Council to pass a resolution condemning Rodoni, eventually approached Hoover and let it be known that funds were available.

Far from feeling he did anything wrong, Ornelas said that he was merely responding to the large number of his constituents who had complained to him about Rodoni. "I was just doing my job as a public servant," Ornelas said.

But, given the controversy that has erupted, Ornelas said that if he had to do it over again he would simply have urged Hoover to do a story and not mentioned anything about money.

As for Hoover, it is not clear whether he was initially amenable to Ornelas' overture, but he evidently didn't tell the mayor no. "I wasn't aware of all the wrinkles as I am now with regard to this sort of thing," Hoover said last week. "Most ethical things are simple. This one was quite complex."

There's some truth to that. While it's a somewhat controversial practice, third parties do at times fund investigative journalism. Maclyn McClary, a journalism professor at Humboldt State who teaches a news media ethics course, pointed to the Pew Charitable Trusts, a foundation that has shelled out a lot of money to encourage better community reporting by the media. "Some people object to that because they say newspapers ought to pay for investigative reporting," McClary said, "but some [of the stories Pew has funded] have shed some light on some important stories."

McClary said he didn't know enough of the details of this particular situation to make a judgment about whether anyone was guilty of any wrongdoing. But he said there was a need to "connect the dots."

"Who knew about [the offer of $1,000] and when did they know about it? And did it in any way effect the reporting?" McClary asked.

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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.
2/17/05 Northcoast Journal RODONI CLEARED: