Determination
24
Minnesota
News Council
In the Matter of the Complaint of
Robert Uppgaard and Jack Echternacht against the Brainerd Daily Tribune
Drs. Robert Uppgaard and Jack Echternacht, both dentists,
complained that the paper failed to meet desired journalistic standards
in its overall coverage of the city's prolonged controversy over fluoridation
of its water supply. They further complained that the paper imposed
unfair and inconsistent policies on letters to the editor in regard
to the controversy.
Aspects of the complaint concerning the letters column
included allegations that the newspaper altered a letter to significantly
change the meaning and give respectability to the writer, refused
to print letters disagreeing with the editor's viewpoint, published
an overabundance of anti-fluoride letters and a minimum of pro-fluoride
letters, and published letters that violated the paper's stated policy.
Further aspects of the complaint charged the newspaper with printing
editorials that admitted the paper's anti-fluoride position on the
issue, publishing inaccurate information in editorials, allowing editorial
bias to determine placement of news articles on the issue, and failing
to maintain the watchdog role of the press.
Background: The period encompassed by the Brainerd
fluoridation controversy ranged from 1961, when the city held its
first referendum on the issue, to the time of the complaint (1977).
In 1967, the Minnesota Legislature passed, and the governor signed,
legislation requiring the State Board of Health to set fluoridation
levels for all municipal water supplies in the state. At the time
the complaint was filed, Brainerd was the only major community in
the state that had refused to comply; in 1961 and in 1974, Brainerd
voters had rejected fluoridation, state law notwithstanding.
Much of the complaint centered on the paper's coverage
of the 1974 referendum and on a series of legal proceedings that had
fueled the controversy in subsequent years. The letters-to-the-editor
column became an important and influential forum for debate between
a small group of local dentists and others who favored fluoridation,
and community residents opposed to fluoridation. The paper did not
establish or publish consistent policy guidelines for its letters
column; it did, however, print occasional restrictions, presumably
in response to immediate circumstances. As the fluoridation issue
became more heated, for example, the paper announced that it would
restrict letters from outside the circulation area, unsigned letters,
letters not addressed specifically to the letters column, letters
containing personal attacks or repetitious information, and lengthy
letters. In addition, the paper reserved the right to correct gross
spelling and grammatical errors without altering content. Never during
the fluoridation controversy did the paper openly take sides editorially.
It refused to argue the medical evidence, and said that it considered
the central issue not fluoridation, but home rule (the right of the
community to counter state or federal law by means of a referendum
on an issue of local significance).
Determination of the Council: Some of the policies
regulating letters printed in the paper's letters column were unduly
restrictive (prohibiting letters from non-residents of the newspaper's
circulation area and letters not specifically addressed to the letters
column), giving credence to the charge that the paper refused to print
letters disagreeing with the editor's viewpoint. These restrictions
are unwarranted in that they accomplish no objective that would not
be served by the exercise of editorial judgment on each letter intended
for publication. The implication is inescapable that casual readers
of the paper in the Brainerd area, as well as all of those who live
elsewhere, were effectively foreclosed from the letters column, whatever
the nature of their ties to the community, their interest in its public
life or their capacity to contribute to the resolution of public issues.
Evidence indicates that the paper clearly violated
its own policy of not allowing personal attacks in letters when it
published a letter containing attacks on another dentist. The unduly
restrictive nature of the letters policy was demonstrated when the
newspaper initially refused to print the dentist's rebuttal because
he lived outside the paper's circulation area. The paper unfairly
altered one letter (changing the word "chloride" to "fluoride"),
giving increased credence to the letter writer. This action clearly
overstepped the newspaper's policy of correcting only gross errors
in grammar and spelling without changing the writer's intended meaning.
Further, the newspaper fell short of desired journalistic
standards in its overall news coverage of the fluoridation controversy
by adopting a passive role. It is apparent from the evidence that
the dispute was characterized by extreme statements against fluoridation,
by allegedly scientific attempts to link fluoride with cancer, and
by repeated allusions and direct suggestions that opponents may have
resorted to violence if fluoridation would take place in Brainerd.
Faced with such an extraordinary challenge, a newspaper has an obligation
to assemble the most authoritative evidence available to attempt to
focus the complex public debate and to take steps to balance provocative
comment with objective information.
The complaint against the newspaper is upheld. Uppgaard
and Echternacht provided insufficient evidence to demonstrate that
the paper published factual inaccuracies in editorials or allowed
editorial bias to determine news placement. Following its own guidelines,
the Council did not judge the paper's editorial opinion.
March 11, 1977
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