joelontheroad & Conyers

Posted on June 24, 2008 by admin

By Joel ThurtellIt began as a simple blog post based on an old file from my John Conyers Jr. collection of papers.But there’s been enough interest in my story about what former aides to U.S. Rep. John Conyers call the “Little John police report” that I’m encouraged to keep digging into my files on the congressman and his wife. And I plan to do fresh reporting.Why not? Monica Conyers is becoming a subject of interest now that she’s turned defender of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in the text message scandal.So far, I’ve written about the police report in which her son John Conyers II accused Monica of threatening him with a pistol, and I wrote about her four failed attempts at passing the Michigan bar exam to become a lawyer. To give context to those articles and future ones I have planned, I’ve obtained permission from the Free Press to post the Conyers stories I reported with help from staff writers Chris Christoff and Ruby Bailey back in the days when I was a Free Press reporter myself.For future reference, you’ll find the original Free Press Conyers stories under the category “Conyers series.”Recent reports appear in the category “JC & Me.”Anyone with tips or thoughts on this ongoing coverage may contact me at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in JC & Me | 1 Comment

Detroit Media and Freep to buy out 150 more staffers

Posted on June 23, 2008 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

The monopoly that owns the News and Free Press in Detroit is looking to shoo 150 more workers out the door with buyouts similar to ones that ushered 110 workers into early retirement last November.

The papers downsized by 5 percent. Sixteen left the editorial rooms of the Free Press, while the remainder exited from the papers’ business side — known as the Detroit Media Partnership.

The buyout program is voluntary right now. But if fewer than 150 people raise their hands, the publisher may lay some people off.

The Free Press is also scrapping its 11 suburban Community Free Press editions and the Sunday Twist women’s magazine. Both publications will end early in August.

For the second time in less than a year, Gannett, owner of the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and a chain of suburban papers known as the Observer & Eccentric, is trying to reduce staff without layoffs. It’s targeting younger workers, starting at age 45 with at least 10 years of service. The deal offers two weeks of salary for each year of service to a maximum of 52 weeks.

The deal is being offered immediately to non-union staff. Unions, including printers, Teamsters and The Newspaper Guild, have been invited to bargain for a similar deal.

The reason?

According to Detroit Media President David Hunke, “The environment in which newspapers operate continues to worsen rapidly, and the Detroit Media Partnership faces unique challenges because of the state’s business and economic climate.Again, two weeks of severance pay are being offered for each year of service.”

The buyout is known as a “voluntary severance program.”

Incidentally, I know this program well. I’m still receiving weekly paychecks from the Free Press, having accepted a buyout last fall. I call it the Gannett Grant.

“We are evaluating ways to retain some key content and to retain advertisers,” Hunke said in a note to employees.

Gannett wants to cut at least 150 jobs. “If more than 150 volunteer, we will review whether we can expand the pool,” Hunke said.

“If the voluntary offer doesn’t result in a sufficient number of volunteers, or if in the future, economic conditions worsen, it may be necessary to consider layoffs,” Hunke said.

Last year’s buyouts at the Free press spread departing staffers’ workloads among those who remained. Removing 150 staffers likely will increase workloads for those who remain, although shutting Twist and Community Free press operations will free some Free Press editorial staffers to work in other areas.

For readers, the effect means fewer stories and less coverage of local events and people.
Contact me at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in future of newspapers | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Could Kwame skate?

Posted on June 16, 2008 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

What is it about the handling of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s text messages that might induce a judge to discuss the subject in secret?

In a June 8 story, the Detroit Free Press seemed mystified — and miffed — that 36th District Judge Ronald Giles closed his court to the public, which meant the Free Press, too. While the Free Press editor and attorney were ranting about First Amendment rights, as if freedom of expression somehow grants free admission to a courtroom, it is just possible that the judge and some of the lawyers more centrally involved in the case than the Free Press had more serious things to discuss than whether reporters can take notes and publish stories about their deliberations.

If I’m not mistaken, there’s a criminal trial coming up, and the defendant has some rights. That is easy to downgrade or dismiss if you’re a newsie hot after a story. But defendants’ rights remain part of the Constitution, along with the First Amendment.

Just to show you how newspaper people can lose perspective, I recall a time when I listened to a prosecutor argue with a Free Press lawyer about whether I should be compelled to testify in a criminal trial. I’d written a story in which the defendant confessed to dealing drugs, and the prosecutor wanted to use that published confession at trial. He needed me to confirm under oath that it happened.

The prosecutor was quite full of himself as he harangued the Free Press lawyer, “My goal is justice!”

“I have a higher goal,” the paper’s attorney shouted from his own high horse. “It’s called the First Amendment.”

But is the First Amendment a loftier principle than guaranteeing that an accused man and woman get a fair trial?

I don’t think so.

Incidentally, despite the Free Press attorney’s arguments, the judge ordered me to testify in that trial, and I did.

But back to this closed hearing. The paper more or less guesses that the business going on outside its ken had to do with the handling of the text messages. That could mean lots of things, including how it happened that the Free Press got its hands on those messages to begin with. Could that have a bearing on the criminal proceedings?

If so, then there’s more at stake from the Free Press point of view than the public need to know. There’s the Free press need to know. As I noted in a previous post, the Free Press needs for those text messages to be open, partly because it smells more hot stories. More importantly, though, those messages need to be presented at trial to help ensure the conviction of Kwame.

Why’s that?

Without the text messages, Kwame stands a good chance of being acquitted. That would be disaster for the Free Press. If Kwame skates, the paper might not garner a Pulitzer Prize.

Why is that such a big deal? Status, bragging power and job opportunity. A Pulitzer would tell the world that despite all the downsizing and idiotizing, Gannett is doing right by the Free Press. For staffers who could claim some share of the big P, it would mean professional mobility – a wonderful chance to get away from Gannett.

So the Free Press needs Kwame behind bars.

But what if the text messages were illegally released? The Free Press story doesn’t mention any of this. But a clue to what may be going on lies near the end of that story mentioning that Judge Giles’ hearing “seemed to focus on the handling of the text messages rather than their exact contents.”

Another writer might have said “mishandling.”

And the Free Press would be right in the middle of that one, even though they’re not allowed to take part in the discussion.

It’s possible some federal court may eventually rule that the text messages were illegally released to whomever the city’s telecommunications company gave them to, contrary to city wishes. It was that person who, presumably, gave the records to the paper.

Illegally released? Possible. It’s because of something known in federal law as “confidentiality of carrier information.”

Title 47, Chapter 5, Section 222 of the U.S. Code provides for “privacy of customer information.”

The law states: “Every telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of, and relating to, other telecommunications carriers, equipment manufacturers, and customers, including telecommunications carriers reselling telecommunications services provided by a telecommunications carrier.

Paragraph (c) speaks to “confidentiality of customer proprietary network information” and states: “Except as required by law or with the approval of the customer, a telecommunications carrier that receives or obtains customer proprietary network information by virtue of its provision of a telecommunications service shall only use, disclose, or permit access to individually identifiable customer proprietary network information in its provision of (A) the telecommunications service from which such information is derived, or (B) services necessary to, or used in, the provision of such telecommunications service, including the publishing of directories.”

Paragraph (2) states: “A telecommunications carrier shall disclose customer proprietary network information, upon affirmative written request by the customer, to any person designated by the customer.”

Who was the customer in the text message case?

It wasn’t the Free Press.

No, it was the city of Detroit. The carrier is SkyTel. The city of Detroit didn’t ask SkyTel to release those messages.

Is this what the court means by “handling”?

The horse may be loose, but the courts might still shut the barn door. I’m told that is very unlikely, since the telecom law requires that carriers disclose messages to law enforcement authorities like the Wayne County prosecutor. But Kwame has claimed his privacy rights were violated. For some reason, the district judge is fascinated with the “handling” of those messages. Are these issues connected?

We’ll just have to wait to find out. Newspapers hate that. It shows that somebody else is in control.

But consider: Sure, we all know the lurid details of the messages, but what if Worthy can’t get them admitted as evidence? Then the jury — in theory — wouldn’t know about them.

In fact, of course, a juror in metro Detroit would have to be comatose not to know about those messages.

But if Kwame’s lawyers somehow manage to pry the messages away from the jury, his trial would be far from open and shut.

Convicting Kwame without the text messages is about as likely as a Free Press Pulitzer if he skates.

But if he gets off, the city council — and the governor — will have a hard time justifying his removal.

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in Joel's J School, Kwamegate | Leave a comment

More wrecks rise from the Rouge

Posted on June 14, 2008 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

I swatted mosquitoes as I watched a man steer a big, yellow machine through a dense, humid woods that leads to the Rouge River near Six Mile and Telegraph in Detroit.

It was early the morning of Saturday, June 7, 2008 — the beginning of Rouge Rescue, the annual cleanup of the Rouge River in metropolitan Detroit organized by the nonprofit Friends of the Rouge.

For Graham Lemons, the machine operator, there was only one question as he maneuvered the Caterpillar excavator down a slope through a forest of tall trees — how was he going to remove a car that lay steeply slanting down the east bank of the Rouge River in Detroit?

Not only was the rusty old derelict ready to tumble into the slow-flowing Rouge if he gave it a nudge, but the automotive carcass was lodged between two big trees that made it hard for him to grasp it with the mechanical claw of his Cat. He wanted to damage the trees as little as possible, or not at all.

Lemons works for Livonia-based Aristeo Construction, which for several years has provided dozens of volunteers to help the nonprofit Friends of the Rouge with its annual cleanup of the Rouge River.For the past three years, Aristeo also has provided heavy equipment for removing junk cars from the river during Rouge Rescue.Rick Lewandowski, general manager of Aristeo, has likened his staff’s participation in Rouge Rescue as “big boy fun. Big boys playing with their toys.”

I have more than a casual interest in this work, because I was involved in revealing in a rather public way the presence of clunkers in the Rouge. On Oct. 19-20, 2005, the Detroit Free Press ran a series of stories written by me (I was a Free Press reporter then) with photographs by Patricia Beck (still at the Freep) showing some of these junkers of the Rouge. I counted and logged them, and Pat photographed them. We did it from the 15-foot aluminum canoe we paddled 27 miles up the Rouge over five days in June 2005.The following spring, I got a call from Sally Petrella of Friends of the Rouge wondering if I’d show them where the cars are. I was glad to, and each spring since then I’ve gone with Sally scouting for junk cars to be removed from the river.

I’m proud to have helped make this happen. As a Detroit abandoned vehicles cop once told me, “It’s always good to put things back in the natural state, and sheet metal ain’t natural.”True, removal of old cars is mainly an aesthetic issue. They’re not really polluting the river. And as far as recreation goes, the Rouge is not safe for swimming or canoeing, because it’s polluted by sewage from the Detroit wastewater transport system as well as private septic systems, and the Lower Rouge also receives industrial waste.Even if getting rid of eyesore cars is only symbolic, it shows that people care about the river.In 2006, Aristeo nabbed six and a half cars — the half was counted because they hauled the better part of a car out of the river. Sometimes the cars fall apart as they’re being lifted and not all of the car can be removed.

That’s almost what happened to Lemons on June 7 as he lifted the rusted hulk from the bank. The car disintegrated, and he deposited a portion of it on the ground, while the rest of it slid down the bank and into the Rouge. Using the machine’s claw, he was able to pry the remainder of the car from the river. Eventually, he brought the entire car, in parts, onto dry land.”I wonder how they got it between those trees,” he said later.

Nobody knows why people abandon cars to the River. Police have speculated that they may be stolen, or maybe were part of a carjacking. Sometimes, people put cars on a railroad trestle for the perverse thrill of watching train engines knock them into the River. The Detroit Police Department’s abandoned vehicles unit will try to identify the owners, but in the past no cars ever have been traced to their owners, officer Robert Terhune told me.

Last year, Aristeo pulled four cars from the river or woods adjoining the Rouge north oof Fenkell. Last Saturday, they pulled six cars from the banks and flood plain. That makes a total of 20 1/2 beaters they’ve removed from the Rouge in the past three years. There are still a few to go.Lemons and Cat driver Jim Fagan, who also removed a tricky bankside wreck, agreed that yanking cars from the Rouge beats construction demolition.

Wayne State University Press is publishing a book by Pat Beck and me about our five-day, 27-mile trip up the Rouge River in June 2005. The book is called UP THE ROUGE! PADDLING DETROIT’S HIDDEN RIVER, and will be available early in 2009.

Contact me at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in Adventures on the Rouge | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Holy Grail: Questing for a Pulitzer at the Detroit Free Press

Posted on June 13, 2008 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

Why such huffing and puffing from the Free Press about the First Amendment and the paper’s — and presumably the public’s — right to know what was in every one of the text messages tapped out by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his erstwhile paramour/chief of staff, Christine Beatty?

Recently, I pointed out that freedom of expression is only one of many tools employed by media giant and Detroit Free Press owner Gannett in gaining its corporate wants.

I was a bit puzzled by the paper’s aggressive effort to gain access to the remaining text messages. Back in January, the Free Press published excerpts from some 14,000 text messages between hizzoner and Beatty. It’s not clear how the paper got those text messages, because it would have been a violation of federal telecommunications law for the text message company to have released them to the Free Press without the city’s consent.

Even now, SkyTel, the text message carrier, can’t legally release those messages to an entity like the Free Press. For law enforcement purposes, they must be disclosed to someone like Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has charged the mayor and Beatty with several felony counts, including perjury. But SkyTel is prohibited, I repeat, from disclosing them to anybody else, and that includes the Detroit Free Press.

In other words, law enforcement agencies can get their hands on text messages, but the Free Press can’t. So why is the Free Press acting like it’s a law enforcement agency?

Could it be that they think they are the cops?

No, they’re too smart to make that mistake.

So what’s going on?

Momentum. Or lack thereof. Fourteen thousand messages, many of them steamy love letters, made for great reading and it sold a lot of papers. But there are only so many smarmy messages, and it seems the paper has exploited the best — or worst — of them.

What’s new? Nothing much. City council is going to try to oust the mayor, the governor is going to decide if she should depose him. There will be a preliminary exam and maybe a trial, but those events are months away. These are all results of Free Press reporting, but every media outlet will have access to those events. The Free Press wants control.

The paper needs more rancid text messages and is willing to share the limelight with the Detroit News (also owned by Free Press owner Gannett) in court to get them.

But that’s not all, and it may not even be the prime motive. What do I mean?

Well, it’s been a long time since 1967, when the Free Press last won a Pulitzer Prize for writing (the paper has won two Pulitzers since 1967, both for photography). Freepster scribes are hoping to break that run of bad luck — or lackluster journalism — by winning the coveted Pulitzer for breaking and stoking the story about the text messages exchanged between Mayor Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty. The text messages suggest hizzoner and Beatty lied in court when they said they were not having an affair, when the text messages show they were lovers.

The Free Press somehow got the text messages and broke the story. Based on the Free Press reports and her own investigation, Prosecutor Worthy has charged Kilpatrick and Beatty with perjury, among other felonies.

Great story.

But it’s helpful in garnering awards if the target of the journalistic probe is convicted of a crime. It would therefore help the Free Press’s case before the Pulitzer board if Kwame took the fall.

Now, there is some slight chance the text messages might be excluded from trial. Believe it or not, Kwame and Beatty do have some Constitutional rights, and a judge might rule that they had an expectation that those messages would be private. Remember, originally, they were (apparently) shared not with a law enforcement agency, but with a private party. A judge might rule that the original release by SkyTel was illegal. Not likely, but possible.

From the Free Press’ point of view, the more messages released, the better.

It could push a jury to convict, and that would weigh heavily with the Pulitzer judges.

Tactics, tactics, tactics.

What about the pursuit of truth?

Come on — we’re talking Pulitzer here.

Contact me at joelthurtell)at)gmail.com

Posted in Joel's J School, Kwamegate, People | Leave a comment

Hypocrisy: First Amendment and the “free” press

Posted on June 11, 2008 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

The Detroit Free Press seemed both angry and mystified in its June 8, 2008 story about a Detroit judge who barred the public and media from a hearing about evidence in Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s text message scandal.

Two big guns from the paper — Editor Paul Anger and longtime Free Press attorney and nationally-recognized First Amendment expert Herschel Fink took shots at 36th District Judge Ronald Giles’ ruling on Tuesday, June 3, in which he said a hearing earlier, on May 20, correctly was held in private.

“The Constitution clearly indicates openness,” Anger was quoted in his paper. Closing the hearing “does not support the Constitution, and it does not support the public right to know about the proceedings involving the mayor.”

The paper indirectly quoted Fink saying “openness — especially in a criminal case involving alleged misconduct by a public official — is vital to assure public faith in the courts.”

What hypocrites.

Lest readers mistake the Free Press and its parent, Gannett, for white knights pursuing the holy grail of First Amendment openness, I’ll point out that the paper plays this game from both sides of the field. When it wants government to be open for news purposes, it shrieks about First Amendment rights. But when it deals with its own employees, or for that matter anyone who litigates against the company, the paper and its Virginia-based owner are the first ones to deny First Amendment rights and to demand that records be closed.

When it’s their own ox being gored, screw the First Amendment.

If you want to learn more about the corporate sociopathology of Gannett, read Richard McCord’s chilling book, “The Chain Gang.” McCord gives a lucid account of First Amendment champion Gannett’s First Amendment misbehavior when its own chestnuts are in the fire.

Actually, their chestnuts were sizzling last year when they tried to discipline me over my donation to Michigan Democrats in 2004, when the Free Press wasn’t even owned by Gannett. The paper responded to a Newspaper Guild grievance on my behalf with an insight into how they really regard the First Amendment. The Bill of Rights, it turns out, is an opportunity sometimes and sometimes it’s a liability.

In the August 6, 2007 letter written by Detroit Media Partnership Human Resources Director Kirstin Starkey, the paper showed they mistakenly believed that the Guild was grieving my case on free speech grounds and were quick to point out their view on my First Amendment rights. Which is that I had none.

Here’s what Starkey told Detroit Local 22 Guild President Louis Mleczko: “With regard to your assertion that employees’ First Amendment rights are being violated, please be aware that First Amendment rights are limited to public institutions. The Free Press, a private employer, is not held to this standard.”

Wow. Low standard for Gannett, high standard for the rest of the world.

Out of one side of its institutional mouth the Free Press rants about its First Amendment rights, while sneering out of the other half of its orifice that employees including the very reporters trying to get into those closed court hearings don’t have similar rights.

Help me out here: How can the Free Press demand openness on First Amendment grounds if its privately employed reporters don’t have First Amendment rights?

Kwame Kilpatrick, take note. Judges, attorneys in First Amendment cases pushed by the Free Press be aware. The paper is on record. Freedom of expression is not a fundamental principle for them. Rather, it’s a pretense to be taken up when convenient and discarded when suppressing information — or people — better serves their private purposes.

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in From My Files, Joel's J School, Kwamegate, Unions | Leave a comment

Wannabe lawyer: Monica Conyers

Posted on June 9, 2008 by admin

 

From my files…(updated)

By Joel Thurtell

Hubby’s a lawyer, and so is she.

But what’s this?

Monica Conyers, a Detroit city councilwoman and wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., is not in the Michigan Bar Directory.

Yet her resume on the city of Detroit website notes that she earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of District of Columbia School of Law.

If you’re not a member of your state’s bar, you can’t practice law. Can’t give legal advice, can’t appear in court, can’t prepare legal documents that require a licensed lawyer’s signature and state bar number.

Isn’t that weird? She spent the time and money to get a law degree, but can’t practice her profession.

No law license.

What gives?

Back when I was a Detroit Free Press reporter, I was curious about this. I wrote on Feb. 7, 2006 to the Board of Law Examiners, an office in the Michigan Supreme Court.

“Esteemed members of the Board of Law Examiners,” I said. “This is a request under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act. I am requesting the results (pass/fail) of any and all state bar examinations taken by Monica Conyers.”

A few days later, I found a letter dated Feb. 13, 2006 from the Board of Law Examiners. “In regards to your correspondence of February 7, 2006, I would like to inform you that the Board of Law Examiniers is not controlled by the Freedom of Information Act.”

Uh-oh, I thought. My bad. I’m out of luck.

But the letter continued: “Ms. Monica Conyers sat for the February 2003, February 2004 and February 2005 Michigan bar examinations and failed those exams.”

It’s one thing to have a law degree, but quite another to be a practicing attorney. For that you need a license. I wondered: Has she taken the bar exam since February 2005? I mailed off another letter to the Board of Law Examiners on June 6 and the response arrived in the mail today and is dated June 10, 2008 — one day ago.

According to the Board of Law Examiners, “Ms. Conyers subsequently sat for the July 2007 Michigan bar examination and failed that exam.”

Four times Monica Conyers flunked the bar exam.

A practicing lawyer she cannot be.

Meanwhile, I’m puzzling about another oddity. According to his biographies in Wikipedia, in the U.S. House of Representatives and his own website, Monica’s husband, Congressman Conyers, has a 1958 law degree from Wayne State University and practiced law in Detroit for a few years before entering politics.

Now he’s chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, supervising lots of lawyers.

But doggone: I can’t find him listed in the Michigan Bar Directory, either.

Wonder what that means.

A lawyer friend emailed this snippet from the Michigan Bar, which doesn’t come up on a search: John J. Conyers, Jr. – P12167 (voluntary inactive). 

 

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in From My Files, JC & Me, Kwamegate, People | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

A week late, and short a few bucks

Posted on June 8, 2008 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

A week after a federal jury acquitted Geoffrey Fieger of charges that he used “straw donors” to cover more than a hundred grand he donated to the 2004 John Edwards presidential campaign, the Detroit Free Press finally says Fieger was wrong about one of the statements he made before the trial ended.

Better late than never, I guess, though the June 8 story ( “Fieger case is example of why law exists, experts say”) is too late to correct a false impression the paper created during Fieger’s trial.

Fieger claimed that before him, the federal government had never tried and convicted someone on the felony charge of reimbursing people for campaign donations. He claimed the government wanted to hassle him because he’s a big wheel Democrat.

In a story in joelontheroad.com last week, I criticized the Free Press for repeatedly reporting that claim by Fieger without any effort to rebut it. If Fieger was correct, I wrote, it would make you wonder why the feds were going after him if they’d never tried anyone else for the same offense. But if Fieger’s claim were wrong, it would look like he was trying to trivialize the prosecutor’s case.

By failing to offer rebuttal, it seems to me that the Free Press was tacitly endorsing Fieger’s claim.

I added that Free Press editors were not telling readers what they and I know — that top Free Press and Gannett execs have donated sizable amounts of money to political causes and that in at least one instance, Gannett actually paid for the contribution. In other words, a Free Press editor was a straw donor. I know this, because it came out in testimony during a Jan. 18 arbitration hearing in which Free Press Editor Paul Anger justified a $175 donation to the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Political Action Committee by saying Gannett actually paid, though his name appears on the Michigan Secretary of State website as the donor of record.

Could it be that Freepsters are reading joelontheroad.com? Lo and behold, today’s story belatedly tests Fieger’s claim.

And finds it false.

Several days after the trial ended and most of the public interest presumably withered, the Freep finally got around to putting the question. It turns out there has been at least one straw donor case that went to trial and ended in a conviction, according to the Free Press. I suspect that if reporters put some real effort into it, say the kind of time, effort and money they’ve expended on another high profile case in Detroit (hint: Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick might be wondering why Fieger got such second-fiddle coverage) they might find there were a few more successful federal prosecutions.

Something weird about that Free Press corrective: There were actually two stories on June 8. The lede story ran on B-1, “Don’t bet on Fieger fallout; case won’t faze campaign finance law, experts say.” Despite what its sidebar story said, the lede story once again repeated Fieger’s claim that nobody had ever been tried and convicted under the straw donor law, which we now know is false. Once again, through this story, the Free Press repeats Fieger’s baloney without rebuttal. Strange.

But I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I appreciate that the Free Press published what amounts to a “skinback,” or correction of an error. I wish they’d printed the information before or during the Fieger trial when it would have been useful to readers, including judge, prosecutors, defendants and yes, even those jurors who I suspect were sneaking looks at the Detroit news coverage, not to mention glimpses of Fieger’s own warm and fuzzy TV commercials.

Yes, I’m grateful, except that, well, I still think they owe it to readers to mention that at least one Free Press exec was a straw donor.

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in Joel's J School, Kwamegate, People | Leave a comment

Private red squads illegal, too

Posted on June 6, 2008 by admin

By Joel Thurtell

Who ever heard of newspapers running red squads?

Sound crazy?

Well, in their effort to impose behavioral conformity on newsroom workers through loosely-thought-out rules known as “ethical guidelines,” news managers have actually been doing the same kind of political surveillance that once was the domain of police agencies.

I’ve had experience with both kinds of repression, and in my case, the private form of enforced political behaviorism was the most onerous. I didn’t know till years later that I was under a haphazard form of state police surveillance, but I found out very fast that my politics were being watched when my newspaper editors got wind that I donated money to a political cause.

A little background: Sometime around 1970, when I was a history grad student at the University of Michigan, a friend invited me to a meeting of the International Socialists in Ann Arbor. I remember little of the meeting except that the discussion was boring, but the chicken curry was great.

It turns out something else was going on at that meeting besides curry chicken and a soporific lecture by a Yugoslavian economist. Somebody was jotting down names. Including mine. I never joined the International Socialists, but a list of IS members dated July 7, 1970, had my name on it. The list made its way from the International Socialists to the files of the Ann Arbor Police Department. From there it migrated to the Michigan State Police Intelligence Division in Lansing. This outfit was better known as the state police red squad. I later learned from a former state police red squad detective that the state police hired informants to infiltrate political groups in Ann Arbor. I suspect a paid informant passed that membership roster to the cops.Years later, people sued and a court ordered the dismantling of local and state police red squads. As part of the dismemberment of the state police bureau, notorious for keeping tabs on the Boy Scouts, churches and law-abiding citizens including onetime Gov. John Swainson, the files were distributed to those whose names and alleged political affiliations were in it. I have copies of the two pages that were my state police red squad file.

But government police agencies aren’t the only organizations that keep tabs on people’s politics. Big surprise: Companies do it, too.

For the second time, I found myself the subject of a red squad operation. It happened last year when I ran afoul of a custom-made Detroit Free Press ethics policy banning staffers from donating money to political parties. Custom-made for me, a reporter for the Gannett-owned Free Press at the time.

This time it wasn’t the International Socialist party I was accused of belonging to. I was in trouble for giving money to one of the two mainstream political parties, in my case five hundred smackers to the Michigan Democrats in 2004. My contribution was no secret. It’s on the Michigan Secretary of State website. Nothing happened in 2004. Nothing happened in 2005. Nothing happened in 2006. But after an MSNBC report mentioned my contribution and those of other journalists in June 2007, a top Free Press editor warned me if I made further political donations, I would be disciplined and possibly fired.

Like latter-day red squad dicks, editors made a record of their finding and of our email correspondence and placed it in my personnel file. Now, I believe I have a constitutional right to eat chicken curry with the International Socialists if I want to, and it’s none of the government’s business. I also believe I have a right to support political causes, including the Democrats, and it’s none of the Free Press’s business. I told the MSNBC reporter that my donation didn’t violate the Free Press ethics guidelines of 2004 back when I wrote the check to the Dems. Nor did it violate the Free Press/Newspaper Guild’s contract, which has a professional integrity section. “Whatever the Free Press policy is, I actually have my own policy about that,” I said. I’m a citizen of the United States. I have a right to support whatever candidate I like.”

With help from Detroit Local 22 of The Newspaper Guild, I challenged the Free Press on their ban of political donations. An arbitrator last month set aside the Free Press prohibition, declaring it “null and void.” That means staffers at the Free Press can make donations to any legal activity or organization they like.

I have since learned that what the Free Press did was illegal. Editors made and kept a file on my political activity. That”s a violation of Michigan’s Bullard Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act. The language of the Act is broad and covers more than just politics. It forbids employers from collecting and keeping records of workers’ associations, publications or activities that take place outside work. It covers all employers, both government and private, and it applies to all kinds of work, not just journalism.

Here’s what Section 8 of the Employee Right to Know Act says:

(1) an employer shall not gather or keep a record of an employee’s association, political activities, publications, or communications of non-employment activities, except if the information is submitted in writing by or authorized to be kept or gathered, in writing, by the employee to the employer. This prohibition on records shall not apply to the activities that occur on the employer’s premises or during the employee’s working hours with that employer that interfere with the performance of the employee’s duties or duties of other employees.

In Michigan, according to this statute, no employer may monitor or keep records of workers’ extracurricular activities of virtually any kind, including political activities. In my case, there is no question that a record of my donation to the Democrats was made. Placing that printout regarding my political donation into my personnel file violated the Bullard Plawecki law. There is a remedy.

According to Section 11 of Bullard Plawecki:

If an employer violates this act, an employee may commence an action in the circuit court to compel compliance with this act. The circuit court for the county in which the complainant resides, the circuit court for the county in which the complainant is employed, or the circuit court for the county in which the personnel record is maintained shall have jurisdiction to issue the order. Failure to comply with an order of the court may be punished as contempt. In addition, the court shall award an employee prevailing in an action pursuant to this act, the following damages:

(1) For a violation of this act, actual damages plus costs.

(2) For a willful and knowing violation of this act, $200.00 plus costs, reasonable attorney’s fees, and actual damages.

Journalists should take note of two things. First, the arbitrator in my political donation case ordered the Free Press to scrap a rule banning political donations. That ruling is a precedent that can be used in similar labor contract cases nationwide, and it provides guidance in non-contract cases. It’s also a powerful jab at news organizations’ efforts to regulate non-work-related behavior of staffers.

Secondly, in Michigan, any news organization — indeed any employer — with or without a labor contract that tries to ban political activity could be in violation of state law if it tried to enforce its policy. It could be subject to court sanctions if it monitors, tracks and records employees’ outside political activities.

The Bullard Plawecki law is a shield not only for journalists, but for all workers with opinions and a will to act politically.

Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in Arbitration, future of newspapers, Joel's J School, Unions | Leave a comment

Police content, not reporters, arbitrator advises papers

Posted on June 4, 2008 by admin

 

By Joel Thurtell

He’s no journalist, but Paul Glendon has some sage advice for newsroom bosses who want to make their publications bias-free.

Don’t be obsessed with contributions your staffers make to political causes, says Glendon. Look at your paper itself, or listen to your radio station or watch your television signal.

Is your product free of prejudice?

In other words, police the output, not the input.

Glendon was the arbitrator who ruled June 27 in my case against the Detroit Free Press’s ban on political contributions.

Editors issued the prohibition a year ago after learning that I’d donated $500 to Michigan Democrats in 2004.

“Political contributions really should not be the issue,” Glendon wrote in May 27 7-page arbitration ruling. “The company’s appropriate concern should be whether reporters’ work…is slanted subjectively by political beliefs that might be reflected in their donations to political parties, candidates or causes they believe in.

The contractually proper means to avoid any such compromise of editorial employees’ (and consequently the newspaper’s) integrity are management vigilance over the (contractual) ‘professional integrity’ obligations…and editorial vigilance over the work itself.”

No need to set up mini-red squads dictating staffers’ behavior outside of work. What’s on the pages, or the screen or coming over the loudspeaker? That’s what counts.

Makes sense to me.

The product — what people see or hear — that’s what counts.

I’d give media bosses another piece of advice. In my case, top brass at the Detroit Free Press argued without presenting any evidence that my donation somehow compromised the paper’s credibility.

Glendon disagreed. Editors didn’t offer one scintilla of evidence that my donation compromised the paper’s integrity, he ruled.

But since the big guys raised the issue, I’d like to chew on it for a minute. I didn’t compromise their integrity, but they may have done a number on themselves in their recent coverage of the federal trial of attorney Geoffrey Fieger on charges he illegally reimbursed employees for donations to a political campaign.

Now, if you were a media boss obsessed with your publication’s credibility, wouldn’t you want to be as honest and forthcoming as you possibly could if you maybe had a dog in a particular race your paper was covering?

If there was any hint that you might have done something similar to what your reporter was covering at trial, wouldn’t you want to be candid about it with readers? That way, nobody could later impugn your motives for publishing balanced, fair reports.

It came out in my arbitration hearing that at least one Gannett exec, a Free Press editor, made a contribution to a political action committee in his name. But Gannett, it appears, actually wrote the check. I’m referring to the $175 donation Free Press Editor Paul Anger made to the Detroit Regional Chamber PAC in July 2007.

During my January 18 arbitration hearing, Newspaper Guild attorney Duane Ice asked Anger about that donation. Ice’s point, of course, was simply, Why was it okay for Anger to make a donation two weeks after issuing a ban on editorial staffers doing that very thing?

The editor’s response: “It was a company expense.”

Makes me wonder how many other checks Gannett has cut to political causes in the names of company bosses.

“It was a company expense.”

Ice’s response: “Are you aware that companies can’t pay PAC expenses?”

Replied Anger: “No.”

But at that point, Free Press editors knew it was at least questionable for their employer to cover the cost of political contributions made in editors’ names.

Same issue the paper was covering in the Fieger trial.

Why not run a notice to readers that the Free Press had an unusual interest in this case?

I don’t know.

It makes me wonder. The paper’s reports at least twice quoted Fieger, without rebuttal, asserting that nobody has ever been tried and convicted of reimbursing employees’ political donations. Everyone had pleaded guilty without going to trial, Fieger said.

Fieger meant to trivialize the prosecutor’s case by claiming the issue had never been before a jury.

But is that true?

There was a time when Free Press would have browbeaten a reporter for turning in a story that made an unsubstantiated assertion without any other attribution than “Fieger said.”

I can remember a time when that kind of claim would have been the subject of its own story. How many cases of this nature have gone to trial? If not, why not?

But from the Free Press, we got mere repetition of Fieger’s claim.

Makes me wonder why. Could it be related to the fact that editors (well, in at least one case we know for a fact) may have had contributions paid for by the company, same as Fieger?

A simple disclaimer might have set aside the suspicion.

Aggressive reporting — putting Fieger’s statement to a real journalistic test instead of regurgitating it verbatim — would have made it unnecessary for me to write this column.

 Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

 

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