an interview
with Don
Shelby

Newsworthy 1997

The News Council determined that the series presented a "distorted, untruthful picture" of the airline by the use of unconvincing sources, electronic graphics to embellish the content, lack of context and the use of sensational images in promotional spots.

Some WCCO employees objected to the News Council's consideration of style and tone. Shelby expressed resentment at the use of the word "untruthful;" he said it made him and his colleagues out to be liars and that, quite to the contrary, they were convinced they had told the truth.

WCCO's new general manager, Jan McDaniel, who started her job after the series but before the hearing, said publicly that the station had learned from the hearing and henceforth would de-emphasize electronic graphics as a tool to embellish stories.

And in the March issue of the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), Shelby acknowledged a number of mistakes and misgivings about the series:

WCCO should have taken more time before the broadcast to build a convincing case that the airline intimidated mechanics into returning planes to service too quickly to guarantee their safety.

The series stretched too far in trying to make its case when it relied extensively upon testimony from witnesses charging sexual harassment cases unrelated to safety.

The promos, featuring a plane flying at an angle that made it look as if it were about to crash, never should have appeared.

The I-Team used techniques that resembled tabloid journalism, which Shelby says looks like fiction. TV journalists are so accustomed to working that way that the audience recognized the problem before the station did.

Don Shelby spoke with NEWSWORTHY to elaborate on these views.

NEWSWORTHY: How did you arrive at the views you expressed to CJR?

Shelby: I had those feelings all along. That's the reason I said I would be willing to accept criticism of that piece, because I had criticism of it myself. But you can't, in the forum provided by the News Council, make admissions like that. You're there to try to stand by your story ... to say that the story has no problems. You're not there to admit to the very thing that is at least a portion of the criticism that the opponent has ... because if you admit to that you are opening the door to the supposition that lots of your story is flawed.

I was never asked the question directly, "Would you have done things differently" My response, honestly I would have done a lot of things differently.

Part of the reason I can say what I am saying today is that we have come to an understanding among the people involved that the story would have been better if some of the elements had not been in there, particularly the sexual harassment story and the mention of [the woman who was found dead at Boston's Logan Airport]. The story would not have attracted the kind of heat and would not have looked like as John Finnegan of the News Council put it a sort of bait and switch.

It was an effort to explain an atmosphere of retaliation, and the people who were willing to speak on the air about it have experienced it in this other arena [when complaining about sexual harassment].

To have spent so much time on that was just poor storytelling, and it got us into trouble.

NEWSWORTHY: If the station had admitted those things to Northwest from the start, there would have been no hearing.

Shelby: In the letters [between Northwest and WCCO] there were some admissions. But we couldn't admit [to Northwest's main contention] because [our] sources were reliable, and they (NWA) don't know who our sources are. One of the problems we had, we couldn't reveal the 24 individuals that we had on the record, but whom we had granted confidentiality. Why would you ever do a story using unreliable sources?

NEWSWORTHY: Sometimes it happens.

Shelby: You can sometimes be fooled, but not at my advanced years, by 24 people saying the same thing.

NEWSWORTHY: Did you have time to think about that before the story went on the air?

Shelby: No, not in terms of getting it out. The stories had been largely produced before I became fully aware of how they would be used. I conducted the interviews on sexual harassment. These individuals had suffered retaliation for rocking the boat. I believed that if properly used although they weren't the best [witnesses] we could get; it would be better to have mechanics that while it was a stretch, it might serve us.

NEWSWORTHY: Did it occur to you that your reputation was at stake, that it was a risk?

Shelby: There's always a risk when you're on the air saying anything. A greater risk when you're doing an investigative report, and a much greater risk when you're doing an investigative report on an important citizen in the community. I knew the reason they asked me to do the story was that they needed the potency of the long-time investigative reporter and anchor to carry it off, because the subject was so important and I did have the experience.

NEWSWORTHY: The veteran reporter often serves as the gatekeeper of last resort, to protect the station, the public, everyone involved. Did you ever think, before broadcast, there's something wrong with this story?

Shelby: It's a question of who knew what, when. At the meeting with NWA when I, for the first time, saw the promos I was appalled and knew this was the beginning of the troubles.

The pieces themselves troubled me as an investigative reporter because we didn't have a lovable on-camera source to make these accusations. Three people agreed to be silhouetted, and Digatono [the welder who had been fired and was suing Northwest], went on camera and became a critical negative for us. Now you have the choice at that point to not do the story, or to do it and tough it out, and we decided to tough it out. We had discussions about the weaknesses, but you can't decide not to use it because he has some negatives.

The idea that he was a disgruntled former employee and just has an ax to grind was a criticism by some on the News Council. I'm dumbfounded. Every story I've ever done came from somebody who had an ax to grind. You have to look at your information and say, "Is it true? Can we back it up?" The 24 other sources we had convinced us we could.

NEWSWORTHY: What do you think of the News Council process as a way of focusing these issues for the public?

Shelby: I have mixed emotions. Because of the importance of the case I would have much preferred this to be in a court of law. Of course I don't have to pay the bills. I am completely convinced that our side would have been sustained because the questions would have been different.

What happened with the News Council finding that this was untruthful reporting [was that it] gave Northwest Airlines the ability to walk away and say, "See, WCCO was wrong." I don't believe the News Council meant to say that.

(Editor's note: The question before the News Council was whether WCCO's stories were journalistically sound.)

Some individuals on the News Council do not have a working knowledge of investigative journalism. Some members who work in business were appalled by the idea that we gave NWA only 10 days notice that we wanted an interview. That is almost 10 days more than we give anyone. It did not serve WCCO.

We were blamed for the fact that our interview with them did not take place until the day it aired. Once we alerted them, the time line was in their hands. WCCO did not get credit for the fact that I broke with long-standing journalistic tradition and met with Northwest's people without a camera and went over every detail of the questions we would ask, so they wouldn't be blindsided.

NEWSWORTHY: John Finnegan [former executive editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press] said at the hearing that your sources just weren't convincing, and the case hinged on that. If they had been convincing, a lot of the other complaints would have fallen away.

Shelby: No question, No question. No question. That was the weakness of the piece. I don't know if in this town we would ever be able to get enough people to put their careers on the line and say the kinds of things that were being said off camera to us.

If I were writing this piece for NEWSWORTHY, as an uninvolved journalist, I would say, "They didn't prove it to me. I'm not convinced. It is likely true, because Shelby wouldn't go on the air if it weren't. He must have something; there must be some other bullets in the gun that he's not shooting, so I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt," which I think the general public did.

But that doesn't make it a good piec