On April 1, The [Toledo] Blade asked the four candidates in the city's mayor's race to sign a clean campaign pledge produced by the Institute for Global Ethics in Rockland, Maine. Yet the newspaper itself frequently has violated fundamental ethics rules established by the Society of Professional Journalists. This is the first in a series of articles detailing the more serious infractions.
"Having been the ombudsman for this paper for almost a decade...I have never seen anyone trying to distort the news at all." Jack Lessenberry, The Blade, Jan. 27, 2008
TOLEDO, Ohio - During the week before the November, 2004 election, editors at The Blade met for their daily news meeting in the third-floor conference room at the newspaper's
When the discussion turned to a ballot initiative hopeful of diluting the city's recently-passed smoking ban - a ban The Blade championed - an editor had a question for Kurt Franck, the paper's managing editor.
When was the paper going to publish the results of a poll revealing voter opinion on the anti-smoking ban issue?
The editor, who has requested anonymity for fear of being fired, said the question was asked because The Blade had been running daily polls on nearly every key race and issue - polls the paper had commissioned and paid for - yet nothing on the much-anticipated anti-smoking ban initiative poll.
Franck had some startling news: The Blade would not run the poll story. No explanation was given. End of subject, Franck told the editor.
The implication of Franck's news, however, was clear to everyone aware of the poll: The Blade's side on the issue was losing.
The Blade’s decision to spike the poll story was one of several questionable decisions made by the newspaper and its affiliated companies involving the anti-smoking ban initiative, according to one newspaper ethics expert. The others:
"There are editorial page campaigns for [such] things,” said Fred Brown, vice chair of the Society of Professional Journalists' ethics committee and a Denver Post columnist. “When it comes to a point of actually participating in the money, the advertising and the running of a campaign, I think newspapers should stay out. It’s dangerous water to be wading in."
The initial smoking ban, known as the Clean Indoor Air Act, breezed through Toledo City Council by an 11-0 vote on July 8, 2003. As evidenced by its numerous editorials and intensive news coverage, The Blade was a zealous supporter. The newspaper was so pleased with the council’s decision that when eight council members ran for re-election, their vote on the ban highlighted The Blade's endorsement of their candidacies.
"We have been impressed with this City Council on several fronts, but its unanimous and continuing support for the city's new smoking ban sets it apart," the newspaper wrote on Oct. 30, 2003.
The opposition was equally zealous in its effort to overturn or at least weaken the ban. Led mostly by bar owners who believed the initiative was going to put them out of business, they initially supported a slate of anti-smoking ban candidates in the 2003 campaign. When that failed, they turned to a ballot initiative. By mid-August 2004, they gathered the 10,000 signatures required. If it passed, the initiative crafted by Citizens for Common Sense, known as Issue 4, would ease anti-smoking rules for smaller bars and restaurants.
The idea that the smoking ban opponents might win did not sit well with John Robinson Block, The Blade's co-publisher and editor-in-chief, or his twin brother, Allan Block, chairman of Block Communications Inc., The Blade's parent company. Both had been vocal supporters of the initial ban. John Block mobilized his news resources, while Allan Block became a booster of the task force that hoped to defeat Issue 4. The Blocks were aided by then Toledo Mayor Jack Ford, who was determined to preserve the smoking ban he also championed. Ford organized the task force, known as Citizens for a Healthy Toledo. Terry Carey, the group’s chairperson, said she had little authority over the task force. Megan Vahey, Ford's spokesperson, ran the group's meetings, according to Carey. Carey recalled that at one of the early meetings, in late summer 2004, Vahey has a surprise announcement. FLS Marketing, the Toledo firm that handled the initial smoking ban campaign, would be replaced by a local marketing consultant, John Fedderke. Fedderke, it turned out, was recruited by Allan Block. In an interview, Fedderke said he has one significant client, Buckeye CableSystems. Buckeye, the Toledo areas's leading cable TV and internet service provider, is another Block Communications holding. Fedderke said he maintains a desk at Buckeye headquarters in South Toledo. Carey said Allan Block attended at least two of the task force meetings, as did then-Buckeye CableSystem President David Huey and other Buckeye employees. Explained Fedderke: “There were a number of people at Buckeye who felt very passionately about the anti-smoking bill. The entire company group was pretty much committed to it.”
Fedderke said it never occurred to him that there might be a conflict of interest with Buckeye’s – or his - involvement in the campaign. “I never felt that whatsoever. Why would I? Having acted as a volunteer, I don’t think there’s any issue to it.”
According to Lucas County Board of Elections documents filed by Citizens for a Healthy Toledo and obtained by The Newsmeister, Fedderke was paid $65,000 by the task force for media buys – the cost of air time and production services for the commercials he produced, he said. He said he was not paid a commission for his work.
Meanwhile, according to the documents, the Blocks' interest in Issue 4 stretched beyond news coverage and campaign activism. On Oct. 14, 2004, Allan Block wrote a check for $1,000 to Citizens for a Healthy Toledo. Five days later, the task force received a $10,000 check from Buckeye CableSystem. Earlier that month, Buckeye gave the task force $9,486.41 worth of production services and air time for a TV commercial produced by Fedderke.
The Blade pitched in as well. On Oct. 31, the task force received an in-kind contribution of $10,000 from the newspaper. The contribution was labeled media. That day, an ad against Issue 4 measuring about a third-of-a-page ran in The Blade’s election section. The following day – the day before the election – The Blade published a similar advertisement that filled an entire page.
Brown, the newspaper ethics expert, said The Blade - and Buckeye - erred in providing financial support: "To actually go out and pay for a campaign is a bit over the edge. I think it stretches the bounds of what's ethical."
The Society of Professional Journalists ethics code has this to say about such actions: Newspapers should “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived,” and “remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.”
Yet another, more curious snub of the ethics code was The Blade's refusal to publish the Issue 4 opinion survey results - curious because the paper hyped the story and was diligent in publishing other poll results.
During the campaign, The Blade published three editorials urging voters to defeat Issue 4. The paper was busy on the news side, as well. Between Aug. 15, when the initiative was announced, and Oct. 31, 23 articles were written by former Blade staff writer Tad Vezner. At a time when the paper was curtailing travel because of budget woes, Vezner was dispatched to Tempe, Ariz., and San Luis Obispo, Calif., to report on the impact of recently passed smoking bans in those communities.
But as to the poll on the election's hottest and most controversial issue - not a word.
Issue 4 organizers, encouraged by growing support for their side, say they were awaiting the results. "We knew there was a poll. And we knew it was in our favor," said Bill Delaney, owner of Delaney's Lounge.
With a day or two left in the campaign, Delaney said it was clear to his group the story had been killed. Asked if he called the paper to find out what happened, Delaney said he did not. "Why deal with The Blade? They're going to do what they're going to do.”
On Nov. 2, 88 percent of
"They just buried it," he said. "I was absolutely pissed about it."
Brown said The Blade's decision on the poll was another mistake: "I think part of telling the story is telling the whole story. If you have the information, and people are interested in it, then you should run it."
Again, the ethics code speaks to The Blade’s actions: “Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.”
So, who killed the Issue 4 poll story, and why? Blade executives and the Blocks aren’t saying.
Blade Managing Editor Kurt Franck did not dispute what he said at the editors meeting in 2004 – the poll story was not going to run – but declined to discuss the subject. “You’re going to have to keep looking, because I don’t know all the details,” he said.
When asked to comment on The Blade's involvement in Issue 4 - beyond news coverage, Executive Editor Ron Royhab said: “I’m not going to talk with you on this.”
Allan Block did not return a phone message. Neither did John Block, who also declined to respond to two e-mails in which questions related to this story were asked.
Casey Bukro, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and editor who helped write the journalists’ society’s ethics code, wrote in an e-mail query response that publishers and high-ranking editors should be held to the same ethics standards as reporters.
“Media executives,” he wrote, “sometimes engage in activities that would be forbidden to staff members who cover such activities because of concerns over conflict of interest. [They] are recognizing that such restrictions should and do apply to them, because of their influence over news coverage.
“The public, after all, is watching.”
Reported by George J. Tanber georgejtanber@ gmail.com
Publisher’s note: George J. Tanber worked 14 years as a general assignment, special projects and investigative reporter for The Blade. He was fired in May, 2006 after he sent a report to the Pulitzer Prize committee on ethics violations he said were committed by The Blade in its coverage of a political scandal known as Coingate, which was entered in the competition.
