You are the final decision-maker for hiring employees in each organization listed in the two examples below. Assume each applicant is fully qualified for the position and has all the requisite knowledge, skills, abilities, licenses or certifications, and education. Then you receive verified, credible documentary evidence showing that:
1. About a year prior to his prospective hiring date, an applicant for the police department publicly stated that he would lie in court to secure a conviction and would lie in an internal or criminal investigation to protect a fellow officer.
2. About a year prior to his prospective hiring date, an applicant for a local newspaper reporter position pseudonymously but publicly stated he would sign legal documents with a false name in an effort to invalidate the documents, and he openly encouraged others to do the same.
Again, assume that as any diligent employer would, you investigated the allegations in both examples and found credible derogatory evidence substantiating them. Each example presents the same decision for you to make: Even though each applicant is fully qualified, is each applicant suitable for the job he or she is seeking with your organization?
“Suitability” refers to a person’s identifiable character traits and conduct sufficient to decide whether employment or continued employment would or would not protect the integrity or promote the efficiency of the agency or company. “Suitability” is different from meeting or even exceeding the necessary qualifications to do the job. “Suitability” seeks answers to the questions, “Is this applicant a good fit for our agency or company? Will this applicant’s conduct and work product faithfully represent the values and principles of this agency or company?”
In the first example, I would not hire the applicant as a police officer. His supervisors would question if his reports were factual and complete. His credibility would properly be challenged by judges, prosecuting attorneys, and defense attorneys when they reviewed his sworn affidavits and reports and when he testified as a witness in court. The public would properly question both the department’s institutional integrity and officer’s individual integrity. He may be qualified, but he is not suitable for employment as a police officer with my department.
In the second example, I would not hire the applicant as a newspaper reporter. If hired as a newspaper reporter, an applicant who has publicly stated he would intentionally falsify legal documents to invalidate them and who openly encouraged others to do the same could reasonably cause the paper’s readers to be concerned that his stories would omit significant facts and include false information. That could potentially damage his newspaper’s and his colleagues’ reputations. Many but not all news organizations have their own written code of ethics or statement of principles. The Statement of Principles of the American Society of News Editors is one example. Another example can be found in the SPJ Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists.
So now, consider this:
According to this March 27, 2013, Huckleberries Online post on The Spokesman-Review newspaper’s website, a post authored by one of the newspaper’s print columnists David F. Oliveria:
“Jeff Selle, one of Huckleberries own, is returning to the journalism game, after years of wandering in the public relations wilderness. Jeff will rejoin the Coeur d’Alene Press.”
Then in a comment attached to that same March 27th Huckleberries Online post, commenter “Bent” responds in the first person and gratefully acknowledges Oliveria’s and other commenters’ congratulations. With that first-person acknowledgement, “Bent” does not dispute Oliveria’s identifying him as Jeff Selle. That association also seems confirmed by this February 20, 2012, Huckleberries Online post titled DFO Eavesdropping on Blogfesters?. Read the entire caption with the photo. Reading those two posts together, one could reasonably conclude that “Bent” is Jeff Selle, rehired as a staff writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press.
I do not know if Coeur d’Alene Press publisher Jim Thompson and editor Mike Patrick were aware of “Bent’s” April 4, 2012, comments on The Spokesman-Review newspaper’s website before rehiring Selle, who is a resident of Post Falls. I believe they should have been if they diligently investigate and seriously consider every applicant’s suitability as well as qualifications for employment.
Coeur d’Alene Press employees, advertisers, and readers could reasonably question if the comments made by “Bent”/Jeff Selle on The Spokesman-Review newspaper’s website on April 4, 2012, reflect the character traits and conduct essential in an unbiased, professional newspaper staff writer. Will the content of his news articles reflect the values and principles of the Coeur d’Alene Press and its owner, the Hagadone Corporation?
In much the same way that police officers hold positions of public trust, so do newspaper publishers, editors, and reporters. Public trust positions involve access to sensitive personal information. Abuse of that trust creates a significant risk for causing damage to people, programs, an agency or business, or for exploiting the information for personal gain. If newspapers abuse the public’s trust in order to manipulate public opinion, they become instruments of propaganda. Then they are no longer worthy of the public’s trust and confidence and should have no credibility.
As the Detroit Free Press Ethics Policy once stated, “Credibility is the franchise of journalism.”
Bill: It is my opinion that the Cda. Press is using Selle to be their attack dog knowing the background from which he came. I will almost bet that he will be gone after the election.
Mr. Hagadone and all his related business connections have a huge stake in this election. Donations and endorsements are backing up my opinions. At stake is the Four Corner project, future east Sherman urban renewal discussions and the City’s possible future ownership of Cda. Lake Dr. All properties are of interest are high stake items of a few and many links are pointing at Hagadone business ventures and his associates.
I believe this election is Development vs. Residents. Hopefully our citizens will take a stand and say “No” to everything downtown.
Comment by LTR — October 24, 2013 @ 12:58 pm
LTR,
A credible, timely, accurate, and complete newspaper can be a very effective social deterrent to public corruption. If the bad guys fear news exposure, they are less likely to offend or at least much more concerned about being exposed. Diligent news coverage also puts pressure on a complacent or complicit criminal justice system (police, prosecutors, judges) to perform their own duties diligently and honestly.
Comment by Bill — October 24, 2013 @ 3:51 pm
I now understand why things are as they are.
Comment by up river — October 24, 2013 @ 5:47 pm
The Spokesman-Review has two representatives on the Judicial Media Committee, Betsy Russell and Joel P. Hazel. We know Betsy as a reporter and Joel as a media attorney for the S-R. He is also on the Judicial Council as their secretary/treasurer representing our district involving complaints against judges. IF a lawsuit would surface, concerning the inaccuracies of a reporter, we would have an absolute mess – BECAUSE, there is blue ribbon committee that serves to resolve any conflicts that might arise from a “free press/free trial” issue. We all saw how the press handled the Brannon/Kennedy trial – right down to who wore what. It was a media circus, to the point of charging Bill McCrory with contempt because he published the truth. The blue ribbon committee consists of those who already represent the Spokesman-Review. The CdAPress is clueless, they do not even know what a judicial committee is – ignorance is bliss. In the event there is a problem, in order to convene this blue ribbon panel, you need to contact the Director of the Courts, Patty Tobias OR Betsy Russell, Reporter. The very fact that Betsy Russell and Joel Hazel are both on the judicial media committee as well as Hazel’s appointment to the Judical Council – makes our news environment and local reporting practices “toxic.” In other words our mainsstream tabloid news is well protected and can write, slant, and ignore whatever they want.
Comment by Stebbijo — October 24, 2013 @ 6:39 pm