Determination
130
Minnesota
News Council
In the matter of the complaint of the Ely City
Council against the Ely Echo
Background
The Ely City Council held a closed meeting in April
to discuss its ongoing negotiations with the EPA over violations for
which city was being fined. The City Council closed the meeting citing
the need for a discussion of potential litigation strategy, currently
an exception under Minnesota's open meeting law. The City Council
said it was protecting the concerns of the citizens by keeping the
discussion of strategy confidential. The Ely Echo, one of the two
newspaper's in town, published an account of the meeting in the following
week's paper. The paper declined to respond to the city's inquiry
about the source of the article. The paper also said it was protecting
the taxpayers' interests by keeping them informed about the actions
of the City Council.
[Note: The News Council stressed the point at the
hearing that this case was not about the legality or illegality of
the meeting, but rather about the journalistic and ethical standards
used in the reporting of the meeting.]
Complaint
The city then brought a complaint against the newspaper
claiming:
1 that the paper unethically violated the confidentiality
of a client/attorney conversation by publishing the story.
2 that the news story unfairly implied that the meeting
was illegal by using language such as "hastily called
[meeting];" "city officials huddled with attorney
Larry Klun to plot their next move;" and "Another
contentious point in city circles is the process that led to
Tuesday's closed meeting."
3 that the article inaccurately suggested that the
city was not threatened with a lawsuit, and that the city was not
currently complying with EPA regulations.
City Council member Paul Kess also raised the question
at the hearing about the methods used in accessing the information
reported in the article and the newspaper's rationale in keeping that
information secret under Minnesota's shield law. He claimed that the
reputation of City Council members was harmed by the article, as was
the case with the EPA.
Response
The Ely Echo responded that "journalists are
under no legal, moral or ethical obligation to keep the secrets of
government." Tom Coombe, a reporter from the Echo, and the author
of the article, said that the City Council's decision to hold a closed
meeting should not preclude reporters from doing their job and "to
find out what the Council is doing behind closed doors." He also
questioned the City Council's claim that confidential information
was revealed.
The Echo also stood behind the language used in the
article did not imply illegality or wrongdoing on the part of the
City Council, but rather, Coombe said the meeting was in fact hastily
called and there was a "contentious" disagreement in regards
to the issues at hand.
The Echo said that it did not imply in the article
that the city was currently in violation of the EPA regulations
Q & A
In News Council questioning, public member Larry Kuusisto
asked if the City Council found anything in the article inaccurate.
Kess said he didn't find inaccuracies, but rather bias in the article.
Public member Cathryn Kennedy asked the Echo whether it normally would
qualify quotes from an unnamed source, like those in the article,
which were not attributed to a source. Coombe said it is judged on
a case by case basis how to attribute the source of the quotes.
Media member Benno Groeneveld asked Kess if he would
have quashed the story if given the opportunity. Kess said he didn't
know.
Media member Don Shelby asked Coombe if he could rewrite
the story whether he would revise the statement that council members
were "refusing to answer questions." Coombe said he would
say instead that a public statement was expected at the end of the
week.
Deliberation
Media member Walker Lundy opened the deliberations
saying he thought the story was terrific and a story that any paper
would have run on its first page. "It's stories like this that
is precisely why the 1st Amendment is the 1st Amendment and not the
3rd, the 5th or the 8th."
Media member Mike Parta said he was satisfied when
Kess agreed that the story was accurate, while public member Tom Keller
said he had some trouble with the language used, saying he did consider
the EPA's intent to litigate a real threat that the paper did not
fairly acknowledge.
Public member Paras Shah asked Lundy what reasonable
expectation of privacy the City Council should expect when they close
a meeting to the public. Lundy responded, "if we can find it
out and it's the public's business, then we should report it."
Kennedy said she was troubled that the article quoted
from a meeting the reporter did not attend without qualifiers.
Vote
Complaint #1 was denied (14/0)
Complaint #2 was denied (13/1)
Complaint #3 was denied (11/3)
August 16, 2001
Read
Determination 131
Back
to Main Determination Index
Back
to News Council Main
Page
Want
to comment? Send a message
to the News Council.
