Tuesday’s Business section included a story that The Plain Dealer’s president and publisher – Terrance C. Z. Egger on the masthead; Terry to his friends, co-workers and everyone else – had accepted an appointment to the Cleveland Clinic Board of Trustees.
One does not stop the presses for a story that a newspaper publisher has joined a civic board. It is not stunning news.
But the Cleveland Clinic isn’t just any public enterprise. It’s the largest employer in Northeast Ohio; the second-largest in the state. And it’s the source of plenty of news, from the benign to the controversial. Every year, The Plain Dealer publishes well over 100 stories, columns and editorials about the Clinic and mentions it in hundreds more.
So when our publisher becomes a member of the board that oversees executive hiring, financial decisions and potential expansion of a place like the Cleveland Clinic, that’s a bit different.
It was obvious that this appointment would raise questions in some readers’ minds about The Plain Dealer’s ability to cover the Clinic impartially. That’s why Tuesday’s story included the nuts and bolts of the appointment, and comments from journalism scholars as well. And that’s why we’re taking it up again in this column today.
A daily newspaper is a complex enterprise, combining business and art, capitalists and ethicists, pragmatism and creativity. The buildings we occupy and the tasks we perform are divided down the middle. The business people who sell the ads, operate the press, drive the trucks and deliver the paper are on one side. The journalists who cover the news, express the opinions and design the content are on the other.
Each needs the other to exist, but each also needs that bright dividing line to operate ethically. We each try to stay safely on our own side.
The publisher, who serves as the CEO of the newspaper, doesn’t have that luxury. He alone stands astride the whole operation – aware that readers must be confident that they are getting independent, unbiased reporting from the news operation but also aware that the newspaper must be financially successful to succeed. That position automatically makes him a leader in the business community his newsroom must cover without fear or favor.
“I’ve said many times that when I come to work, I think I have three responsibilities,” said Egger. “The journalism side of the newspaper, the business side and civic involvement.”
But, he said, “of the three, the journalism piece is the aspect that under no circumstances can be compromised. If there’s the sense that it’s compromised at all, then it erodes the civic and the business pieces.”
That’s because everything at a newspaper flows from readers’ trust. No matter how good a job the advertising sales folks do, no matter how timely our delivery or sharp the printing – none of that matters if readers don’t trust that the news is presented fairly and factually, without bias or personal agenda.
That concern isn’t limited to the publisher, of course. Everyone who works here has opinions and biases and loyalties. And we all strive to keep those separate from our news and coverage decisions.
“All of us, to one degree or another, have to balance our role as a member of our community and a chronicler of our community,” said Editor Susan Goldberg.
“Some conflicts are obvious and easy to handle,” she said. “For example, you simply don’t get involved in stories in which you have a financial interest. Other conflicts, say those based on strongly held personal beliefs, are more subtle and require more self-awareness and discipline.”
But while no one in the newsroom would dream of assuming a leadership role in something we might have to cover, community involvement is practically in a publisher’s job description, here and across the country.
Egger believes it’s even more than that.
“The highest form of being a good human being is being helpful and doing good in your community,” he said. “If you can do that, knowing that you aren’t going to compromise the journalism side, the two are not mutually exclusive at all.”
He said that before committing to the Clinic board, he had clear conversations with Goldberg and with Brent Larkin, who oversees the editorial pages.
“I’m not oblivious to the concerns some may have about this,” said Larkin. “But anyone who thinks Terry would use his role as publisher to influence editorial comment about the Cleveland Clinic doesn’t know the man. Terry is the boss, but not once in the 14 or so months he’s been here has he attempted to dictate editorial policy. That’s just not Terry Egger’s style.”
The newsman in me has an aversion to any public participation by the newspaper other than covering the news. But any misgivings I’ve got about this are those of perception, not because of a concern about interference from on high.
Goldberg said the answer to that is in being honest with readers.
“I’ve always felt that the best way to manage conflicts, or perceived conflicts, is to publicly disclose them and to be as transparent as possible,” she said. “That’s what we’re doing here today, and that’s what we’ll do going forward.”
Egger was on more than a dozen boards when he was publisher in St. Louis.
“I learned pretty clearly what the lines were and how to handle that,” he said. “The paper comes first every time, that’s not even a close call, and I had not one conflict.
“If I’m on a board, they get me, they don’t get the paper.”
