If you buy the role of journalism in a free society, then you base your judgment on the minds and hearts of the people who track down the events that shape your world.
You must be able to trust them to bring you their best evaluation of what is happening and, in the case of columnists, their best opinions of the flotsam and jetsam of life. This trust is called credibility. If reporters, columnists, editors and other news media personnel do not behave in ways that enhance their credibility, they stand in line to take their lumps.
Credibility is so important to the brilliance of a free press that news organizations spend time and money to develop individual codes of ethical behavior to guide the actions of their personnel. The Salt Lake Tribune has such a document: Rules of the Road for the Professional Gathering and Editing of News. This small collection of pages is handed out to every staff member upon employment. It is serious stuff.
It covers conflicts of interest, outside employment, outside nonpaid activities, accepting gifts or freebies, reporting, photographing and editing, confidential sources, legal problems, newsroom confidentiality, public speaking and becoming a news source and newsroom conduct. Most human functions — such as breathing — are allowed under the policy, but staff members are encouraged to check before doing anything.
Lest anyone believe I am astride my high horse — or acting as though I am better than anyone else — I will now disclose the following personal information:
- I am a recovered alcoholic. The last time I had a drink, the only wines the American middle class drank were Italian Chianti with raffia wrapped around the bottle and Lancers’ ros* in the crock.
- I was once fired by a newspaper for the most egregious sin the press can commit; I made up parts of a news story, because in the midst of a several-year-long drunk, I was too lazy to call a news source.
- I served several years in Purgatory working for a Catholic weekly newspaper.
- I got sober. I cleaned up my act. I worked long and hard to regain respectability.
- I have never knowingly plagiarized another person’s work.
- I have never taken a bribe.
After all that, I get to the specific point of this week’s column. On Nov. 8, sports columnist Kurt Kragthorpe wrote a piece calling for the resignation of University of Utah football Coach Ron McBride. It is no secret that the football program at the U. has suffered some in the national rankings. (In the interest of full disclosure, here I tell you I am a graduate of the University of Miami, whose Hurricane football team plays like professionals — and some say are paid accordingly.)
Kragthorpe failed to disclose that his brother, Steve, who coaches the quarterbacks for the Buffalo Bills, has been mentioned as a replacement for McBride.
Tribune Managing Editor Tim Fitzpatrick offered this explanation for the ethics of Kragthorpe’s writing:
“When the column was written, the departure of Coach McBride was [and still is] considered a foregone conclusion, and Kragthorpe was commenting only on the timing of that departure. He did not address, and will not in future columns, who should replace the coach.”
The problem with that explanation? The appearance of conflict is just as important as the reality of conflict. The Tribune ethical rules say, under conflicts of interest: “Journalists need to recuse themselves from involvement in a story in which a spouse or family member is directly involved, affected, quoted or photographed unless disclosed in print . . . ”
Kragthorpe did not break that rule, but he pushed up against it. And sometimes a push is as good as a hard hit.
Make no mistake, Kragthorpe is in person a wonderful guy who presents himself well and apparently makes sources feel at ease (as opposed to moi, who has been known to scare people off the phone simply by answering it in a guttural growl). But perception is everything. Even though his brother had been the subject of only speculation and has not applied for any position at the U., Kragthorpe should have disclosed the relationship of his brother to the story at hand.
The more thorough the disclosure in the press, the greater the inclination of the public to trust what it says.
