Providence Newspaper Guild - Guild Leader October 20, 2000

GUILD LEADER

Vol XI, No. 68

TNG/CWA Local 31041

October 20, 2000

QUALITY TAKES A HIKE

Kid's Stuff
A story by an editor's teenage son gets top billing in Monday paper Paper did not disclose family relationship; ethics issues raised

A story about a Boy Scout "camporee" that appeared at the top of the Journal's Rhode Island section Monday was written by a teenager who is both a former Scout with close ties to the people he was covering and the son of a top editor.

Throughout the Journal newsroom and news bureaus, reporters were shocked at the conflict of interest in coverage of a controversial organization and the decision to lead a premier news page with the work of a high school senior.

"This is the most embarrassing thing I have ever seen in this newspaper," said one reporter.
The 19-inch piece detailed the "warm, sunny weekend of scouting events and fun," including "the bike-a-thalon, in which scouts rode on mountain bikes to stations where they fired air rifles" and "a special show filled with skits, raffles, cheers and a video presentation."

The story makes no mention of the ongoing controversy over the Boy Scouts' ban on gays, nor does it say whether some parents' objections to that ban had affected turnout at the "camporee."

An italicized note at the end of the story identifies the writer as "a former assistant patrol leader for Troop 6, Cranston." It does not say that he is the son of an editor.

"It violated all the standards we were told about in Journalism 101," said a veteran reporter. The reporter also noted that the story was without substance and written at the high school level. "It makes me think about moving on, because I want to write for a quality newspaper and I don't want my byline appearing next to stories of that caliber."

In his response to criticism of the piece by two other reporters, whose objections were posted on an internal computer bulletin board, executive editor Joel Rawson said that the author was "a 17-year-old Scout who attended the Camporee" and who had "shown an interest in journalism."

Rawson asserted that the story went through "normal editing channels."

In fact, this is not true. Normally, editors decide whether a story is worth covering and, if so, they assign an appropriate reporter to cover it. In this case, based on Rawson's account, it seems the story was deemed newsworthy simply because an editor's son with ambitions to become a reporter was planning on attending the event.

"Staff is thin these days," commented another newsroom staffer, "and I guess they'll fill space with whatever they can get-especially if it also provides an interesting experience for an editor's kid.

"But is this paper's job to inform readers or to provide enrichment activities for editors' children?"

Additionally, the story violates the Guild contract, which is still in force. The contract allows use of such "stringer" work in certain sections under limited circumstances.

"Monday's paper," said Felice Freyer, a Guild executive board member, "provides a glimpse of what will become of this newspaper if the company succeeds in its self-destructive effort to kill the Guild."

Where's Walt?
Sunday column critical
of 'DigitalConvergence' disappears
Was ProJo news judgment skewed by business, marketing concerns?

Walter Mossberg is the Personal Technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, whose writing usually appears in The Sunday Journal.

Except when it conflicts with the Providence Journal Co. business interests and marketing strategy.
In his Wall Street Journal column dated Thursday, Oct. 12, Mossberg examined the CueCat, a device that is tethered to a computer and is supposed to scan bar codes in printed material and link the reader directly to a related Web page.

The CueCat is, as Mossberg states, "the product of DigitalConvergence, a Dallas company with powerful backers." One of those backers, to the tune of many millions of dollars, is the A. H. Belo Corp., the corporate boss of the Providence Journal Co.

Read Mossberg's column online at www.ptech.wsj.com

The Journal intends to introduce the CueCat to its readers by giving the devices away free, in cooperation with Radio Shack. The company has been working for many months to develop the technology and plans to introduce it with some fanfare.

Mossberg tried out the CueCat to see if it met his twin measures of usefulness and convenience.
It flunked. Mossberg noted the central flaw, that to scan the codes, a reader has to have the paper right at his or her computer:

"That's unnatural and ridiculous. Who does their leisure reading sitting in front of a PC? How many people have their PC next to the easy chair, or bed or other typical reading sites? So on the first standard, convenience, the CueCat fails miserably."

It failed Mossberg's usefulness standard as well.

Not only did the scanned-in codes lead to Web pages that he found generally "useless,'' but he said that the technology also seemed clumsy.

"It usually took so much rubbing and dragging to get the scanner to read the codes, that in many cases I could have typed in the Web address more quickly,'' Mossberg wrote.

When this appraisal by a respected technology writer was brought to the attention of executive editor Joel Rawson, he ordered the Mossberg column "held."

It did not appear in the Sunday Journal.

This was an extraordinary departure. The Providence paper runs Mossberg on a regular basis, the exception being when the columnist doesn't file.

The Guild has been told that the company's reasoning is that Mossberg was commenting on a subject about which the public hadn't yet been informed, so it wouldn't make much sense. Better to run it later when the public understands what Digital Convergence is all about.

Whether that happens remains to be seen.

The Mossberg "hold" fits a pattern of censorship by The Providence Journal when it comes to unflattering news about its own business.

One of the targets of this censorship has been the Guild itself.

The newspaper has all but ignored news about the year-long contract negotiations with its largest union, only dropping little tidbits at the bottom of other stories or in inside pages about Guild rallies and other public demonstrations.

The paper even earned itself a "Dart" for unethical journalism from the Columbia Journalism Review when it made slight mention of a Guild protest that caused cancellation of a health care panel discussion at Brown University, even though the Journal had given front-page treatment the day before to a similar incident involving another union.

So now it has put the squash on Walt Mossberg.

It is obvious why.

As outlined Oct. 16, in a staff memo by metro managing editor Tom Heslin, The Providence Journal has a big financial stake in DigitalConvergence.

Months in the planning, the Cat is about to be let out of the bag. Bar codes already are on the weather page. Heslin said bar codes will be added to "standing features," and placed with news stories in November.

CueCats will begin multiplying in the newsroom - boxes full arrived this week. Heslin said there is an order from Radio Shack for 40,000 and "our marketing folks are making plans for Cat distribution.''

And there's more great news:

"This week," Heslin said, "you will begin to see DigitalConvergence ads in the Journal."

Which brings us back to the Mossberg column, which Journal readers didn't see.

In addition to usage problems, Mossberg noted that there are other serious issues with the system.

"There have also been accusations that the CueCat violates privacy because it transmits a unique code with every scan, identifying users by age, gender and zip code. The company uses this information to prepare usage reports for its corporate clients," he said.

The privacy issue has also been highlighted by Leslie Kaufman in the New York Times, who reported on Oct. 5 that "The Denver-based Privacy Foundation, an electronic privacy watchdog, has said it is concerned that because each CueCat comes with a serial number that correlates to its user, it could potentially track with new precision a user's reading and television habits."

Despite the public discourse on a new threat to individual privacy rights, at least two Providence Journal reporters have been told to ignore the subject for now. The excuse given is that those issues will be dealt with at some future time AFTER the company introduces its version of the CueCat.

Not only has an unfavorable evaluation of a company sales gimmick been suppressed, but Journal reporters have been banned from covering news that might reflect badly on company intentions.

A newspaper that used to pride itself on its investigative reporting and the search for truth has now taken to managing the news to suit its corporate marketing strategy.

Whether that happens remains to be seen.
The Mossberg "hold" fits a pattern of censorship by The Providence Journal when it comes to unflattering news about its own business.

One of the targets of this censorship has been the Guild itself.

Along the same lines, The Journal never has run news articles or otherwise explained to readers what was going on when it botched the circulation system with a balky computer, infuriating subscribers and possibly losing numerous sales.

"There have also been accusations that the CueCat violates privacy because it transmits a unique code with every scan, identifying users by age, gender and zip code. The company uses this information to prepare usage reports for its corporate clients," he said.

Not only has an unfavorable evaluation of a company sales gimmick been suppressed, but Journal reporters have been banned from covering news that might reflect badly on company intentions.

A newspaper that used to pride itself on its investigative reporting and the search for truth has now taken to managing the news to suit its corporate marketing strategy.

CAUTION: Cunning CueCats Can Compromise Privacy
The Guild urges caution in taking home free CueCats for installation on personal computers. As noted elsewhere in today's newsletter, there are privacy concerns: every time the Cat system is used, it transmits personal data that users were asked when they registered on-line. Curious about the Cat, anyway? Try it out at work, and don't take a stray cat home. Remember the old clich� about free lunches. It applies to free CueCats as well.

DEBATE: Do Digital Duties Detract Or Develop New Skills?
Reporters and photographers are being asked to record sound and shoot video in addition to their print duties, so they can prepare projo.com and Digital Extra packages. Some are eager to learn new skills; others are asking if must lug around a tape recorder when also shooting photos or taking notes. Discuss this at a meeting at noon, Wednesday, Oct. 25 at the Guild office. Or e-mail your concerns to Tim Schick, administrator, at png@riguild.org and phone him at 421-9466.