Birmingham News Fires Candid Auto Editor   

When Dennis Washburn spoke to WJR earlier this year for a story about auto dealer pressure on newspapers, he was a widely known columnist with 23 years at The Birmingham News . The day after the article appeared, he was out of a job.

His firing has led some in Birmingham to wonder when the News will extend the right of free speech to its own newsroom.

"It bothers me that newspapers cry for free speech in cases involving government information, for example, but apply it much differently when it comes to their own organizations," says Mark Hickson, chairman of the communications studies department at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

The WJR article, "Auto Dealers Muscle the Newsroom" (September), detailed attempts by automobile retailers around the country to take advantage of weak newspaper advertising revenues to pressure papers into more positive coverage.

In the article Washburn, who edited a special auto section under the control of his newspaper's ad department, acknowledged: "Editorial would be extra careful about doing an exposé...[the News ] probably would not jeopardize such a substantial portion of our advertisers unless it was really something major, something that affects people's lives. Their pocketbooks are something else entirely."

According to Washburn, managers at the News told him the day before he was dismissed that the publisher regarded his comments as very serious and that "they'd take some steps to punish me." He says the personnel director told him the next morning, "We're going to have to let you go." Washburn received a pension and severance pay.

The Birmingham Post-Herald , in an article about the firing, described Washburn as almost a cult figure who would mention "his wife, dog, hairdresser and friends in his first-person reports, which often included colorful accounts of [his wife] Bunny's ravenous appetite."

"I was told to promote autos, restaurants and nightclubs in a newsy manner," says Washburn, whose pieces were labeled as promotional in small print at the top of the page but resembled copy from the rest of the newspaper.

"The joke around town was that 'Dennis told the truth for the first time in 20 years and got fired for it,' which was the truth as I saw it," says Tim Lennox, a talk show host with WERC Radio in Birmingham. The paper "has always been a little sensitive" about its image, he says.

" The Birmingham News is a very conservative operation," says Don Grierson, a member of the University of Alabama's communications faculty, who noted that the paper has a policy of requiring mandatory AIDS and drug tests of all new employees, including interns. "I assume they saw Dennis' comments as disloyal."

Already, Washburn's termination has had a chilling effect at the News . Calls to the publisher and editor were referred to the paper's promotion and marketing department, where a spokesman said, "No one will comment." He would not confirm any information in this article.

Not all newspapers are as skittish about this subject as the News , where three editorial writers won a Pulitzer Prize this year. Dan Neil, who edits special advertising sections of the News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, was quoted extensively in the WJR article.

"My boss was glad to see these issues raised," Neil says. "Auto journalism in general is inherently corrupt..It always has been, it always will be.

"Dennis made the mistake of confronting the lie head on."