http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2003/mdia_2003-04-03.cfm "Ever since Elizabeth Smart was found kickin’ it on State Street, some local news reporters have been obsessed with what’s appropriate. Transformed into Monday morning ethicists, they have stroked chins and scratched heads and pondered which facts are appropriate to report and which aren’t. And the difficulties that arise from reporting details about a 15-year-old girl have sparked newsroom discussions about the philosophy and the aims of journalism. Real heady stuff.
Unfortunately, the desire to do the right thing increasingly means not criticizing the Smart family. And in the quest to be appropriate, some Salt Lake Tribune reporters have done inappropriate things—like circulating a petition around the newsroom in an attempt to kill a nationally syndicated column critical of Ed Smart. Some Trib staffers felt the petition clearly breached firewalls that divide editorial and newsroom operations—and expressing opinion from reporting—at the paper.
The column in question belongs to Kathleen Parker, whose byline runs in over 300 papers across the country, including the Tribune. But her column was conspicuously absent on March 23, when “Time for Ed Smart to Step Off Stage” appeared in just about every U.S. market but the Smarts’ hometown.
“Not every paper runs every column I write,” Parker tells City Weekly. “Sure, I felt it might be upsetting to the community and that’s OK if they don’t want to run it—that’s their prerogative. Am I surprised? No.”
She isn’t surprised because the column dared to express what many people have thought for the past few weeks—that Ed Smart seems kinda weird. Parker was more eloquent, accusing Smart of auditioning for “Phil Donahue’s empty chair,” and of seeming “abnormal,” “a lousy actor” and “creepy” when he goes on those tirades about the Amber Alert or tells stories about his daughter’s impromptu harp recitals. She also says Smart’s TV appearances make some people feel like reaching for a shotgun.
Parker’s portrayal of Smart didn’t fly with Trib reporter Linda Fantin. She got a peek at the column, which ran on March 19 in Parker’s home newspaper The Orlando Sentinel, and decided to do something about it. So she wrote a letter to Vern Anderson, the paper’s editorial page editor, and circulated it around the newsroom.
“We find the following column by Kathleen Parker offensive, mean-spirited and completely inappropriate for publication in The Salt Lake Tribune,” read the letter, which was signed by eight newsroom staffers. “While we are sensitive to the issue of censorship, we believe The Tribune also has a duty to minimize harm. After what the Smart family has gone through, they—and the community that rallied around them—should not be subjected to the ‘unlovely’ comments of a half-cocked columnist. Not in their hometown newspaper.”
Anderson says the letter had no bearing on the ed board’s decision to spike the column. In fact, he says he had already made a decision not to run it before he talked to Fantin, a decision prompted by the “thin, tasteless and mean-spirited” nature of Parker’s piece. He adds that he’s “not offended or put off at all by the circulation” of Fantin’s letter.
But Anderson may be in the minority on that last point, since several staffers wondered what in the hell Fantin and the co-signers were doing.
Greg Burton, a Trib news editor, was one of those who greeted the petition with raised eyebrows. Burton doesn’t like Parker’s columns, but he says since the paper has made a commitment to run Parker’s stuff, it shouldn’t censor her.
“Would I do it [circulate a petition]? No. Does it demonstrate that they care an awful lot? Yes. Does it blur the lines that supposedly have been drawn that sharply divides the editorial department and the newsroom? Potentially,” Burton says. “I’m uncomfortable about it a little bit.”
Kevin Cantera, a lead reporter on the Smart case, also felt uneasy by it all. He says the column “was pretty rude and, quite frankly, out of date,” but he didn’t sign the petition because spiking the column raises questions about the paper’s motives. Asking the ed board to chuck the column in the trash might arise from a concern for the family, but Cantera says it creates the appearance that reporters are protecting their sources. Besides, he says, “the whole point of the opinion page is to air opinions.”
The papers that did air Parker’s got an amazing amount of feedback. She personally received more than 2,000 e-mails and phone calls.
“I’ve got more response to that column than anything I’ve ever written,” she says, adding that 95 to 98 percent of them thanked her “for saying what they’d been thinking.”
Of course, very few of the comments were from Utahns, who had to go to orlandosentinel.com to find out what was being said about one of their neighbors.
Fantin doesn’t care how many people responded—she felt like it was within her duty as a journalist to protect the Smarts from an egregious attack.
“I have an obligation to minimize his harm. We should be doing it, and good journalists do it,” she says. “We’re constantly asking, ‘Is this necessary, what good does this do?’ We do that all the time.”
But what news reporters rarely do is circulate petitions around the newsroom. Perhaps it’s the beginning of a brave new world of inappropriateness, or just a momentary lapse of judgment caused by covering an emotionally charged story.
“It’s sort of a strange thing to do, to ask the editorial board to do something,” Fantin says. “I don’t remember this ever happening at the Tribune before.” "
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2003/mdia_2003-04-03.cfm