Determination
30
Minnesota
News Council
In the Matter of the Complaint of
Jon Belisle against the St. Paul Dispatch
Jon Belisle of St. Paul complained that the newspaper
had denied him fair access to its letters-to-the-editor column.
Background: The paper had published a number
of letters concerning the subject of aluminum beverage cans and proposed
mandatory deposit legislation. One letter writer attempted to refute
the statements in an earlier letter by a proponent of the legislation
and to comment favorably on the aluminum industry. Belisle then wrote
to the newspaper responding to the second writer's letter; Belisle's
letter was published. The second writer submitted a response to Belisle's
letter that was also published; the response included a statistic
differing from one in Belisle's letter.
Belisle complained to the paper that the response
unfairly maligned him by accusing him of making a false statement
with his earlier figures. Belisle submitted another letter reiterating
this point. The letter was not published.
The newspaper editor argued that the letter writers
were expressing the same information in different ways and that continuing
the exchange of letters would turn the debate into "a futile ping-pong
match."
Belisle argued that the paper should have published
an equal number of his and the other writer's letters and should have
researched the matter to determine which writer was correct. Belisle
complained that the paper arbitrarily denied him fair access to the
letters column.
Determination of the Council: The debate appeared
to be more than the quibbling that the paper asserted. Although both
letter writers were expressing the same information in different ways,
the other writer, whether or not intentionally, wrongly stated that
Belisle made an incorrect statement.
However, as Belisle had made his point in the first
letter, the paper was not obligated to allow him to respond and reiterate
his point in another letter. He had not wholly been denied access
to the paper's letters column. Newspapers have a right to impose limits
on the number of letters printed from the same source, the frequency
with which a topic is mentioned, etc.; newspapers are not obligated
to print equal numbers of letters from different writers engaged in
a debate.
In this particular case, to allow Belisle to reiterate
his point does not take precedence over keeping the column open for
other opinion on mandatory deposit or any other issue.
The complaint against the newspaper is not upheld.
Dissenting Opinion: Spielman While I agree
that the newspaper has the right to determine when it shall cut off
debate on any subject in its letters-to-the-editor column, and Belisle
has no claim to any number of letters because the other letter writer
had a certain number allowed him, I do believe that every newspaper
has an obligation to the rest of its readers to be completely accurate
in its facts (as opposed to opinions), no matter how they are presented
in a news story, editorial, syndicated column, or even a letter to
the editor.
The exhibits show conclusively that the other letter
writer was the one who misinterpreted the facts, not Belisle. Had
the editor been aware of this at the time, an editor's note would
have been appropriate at the end of the other letter writer's letter.
Since it was not caught at that time, a separate editor's note published
later could have corrected the facts without the necessity of printing
another letter from Belisle. Thus the issue is that of accuracy, not
of fairness.
March 6, 1978
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Determination 31
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