Putting a Price Tag on News Coverage   

City Editor Terry Martin had just gotten off the phone with an aggressive PR coordinator. Kim Parker, from the local Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia, had called to pitch a story idea to the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record.

"She was trying to bring a little pressure to bear on me" to do an article, Martin says of the late-September incident. During their conversation, Parker mentioned an agreement between the Daily News-Record and the college. Martin didn't know what she was talking about, so she offered to fax a copy.

What Martin received shocked him. His boss, Editor and General Manager Richard Morin, and college President James Perkins had signed an "Agreement of Understanding" in which Morin pledged to donate advertising space to the college as part of its $2.1 million fund drive. The contract specified the number and types of ads the paper would donate as well as their estimated value. That information in itself was not unusual. The surprise was a stipulation that the paper would publish at least 24 news articles about college activities during a 36-month period. Estimated value of the articles: $9,570, including $30 for a reporter.

Martin immediately went to Managing Editor Ken Mink to see if he knew anything about it. "Absolutely not," said Mink, who then talked to each senior editor. None had heard of the year-old contract before.

A few days later, the seven men met at a restaurant to discuss what they should do. "Obviously, we were all concerned about..how do you approach your editor and general manager about a situation like that?" Mink says. "We didn't know what [Morin's] reaction would be. He could have said, 'You guys are all idiots, and you're fired.' "

In the end, Mink composed a petition calling for Morin to rescind the contract immediately. All seven editors signed it. "To the man, we were, and we remain, shocked, angered and distressed that such a document could exist, inviting potential ridicule on the credibility of this newspaper and the independence of its news product," Mink wrote.

On September 29, Morin received the petition. That day, he called Perkins and told him the agreement was null and void. Morin also sent the college president a letter the following day to confirm their conversation.

Donating ad space to nonprofit organizations is not unusual for the 32,600-circulation daily, Morin says. But the 39-year news veteran says he didn't read over the two-page agreement nor did he know about the paragraph placing a dollar value on news before signing it. "If I had seen it, I never would have signed it," he says. But, "If my signature's on it, then I take the rap for it."

Morin is quick to point out that no story ever came out of the contract: "I never went to the newsroom and requested that a story be done. I just don't operate that way."

While Morin did work on the fund drive for the college, Perkins and Morin both say they never talked about details of the agreement. They discussed "that this was an agreement that would give [the paper] recognition for supporting our campaign," Perkins says. No money was exchanged; rather, the advertising donation was an "in-kind" gift to which the college attached an estimated value for its fund drive.

Morin and Perkins say they don't know who drew up the agreement; Perkins says it must have been written by someone in the college's development office. Unlike Morin, Perkins says he knew full well about the 24-article stipulation. But, he says, "I did not think about it in the terms of the way a reporter would think about that. It was simply a way for the college to get more visibility."

Morin credits his editors for bringing the issue to his attention. In a memo to them, Morin says, "I used the words, 'I goofed,' and I really did."

But after the contract was rescinded, there were new issues: Should the paper write a story about the incident? And should management call a newsroom meeting to explain what had happened?

To date, the Daily News-Record has done neither. As to why the paper has not written a story, Morin says simply that it's an "internal matter."

Mink agrees. "Writing about it would be an issue that was inside baseball, really," he says. Yet he admits they wanted to protect the paper's reputation. "I guess we were looking at it from the point of view of whether or not the company's image would be tarnished."

Not all staffers agree with the decision not to print. Sports Editor Chris Simmons says the paper's integrity was enhanced by his and other editors' actions. Writing a story, he believes, "would demonstrate to readers that we're honest and willing to correct our mistakes quickly." The incident, he adds, "makes a good case for small papers having ombudsmen."

Some readers may have learned of the agreement as some Daily News-Record staffers did--by reading the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which broke the story November 11.

Louis Hodges, Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, says management erred by not keeping the newsroom informed. "There's no way the reporters in the newsroom would not feel betrayed," Hodges says. "If people in the newsroom are not informed..there's going to be discord, unhappiness and low morale."

Mink says while his attitude toward Morin has not changed, that may not be true of others in the newsroom. "It's one of those things that time will tell what lingering impact this might have."