There is a quite a journalistic mess brewing around the Tampa Tribune's sister newspaper in Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch owned by Media General. Thanks to the efforts of an alternative weekly there, that newspaper's written media policy, which amounts to a gag rule on its own reporters, has come to light. See stories about it in Editor & Publisher and in the alt newspaper, Style weekly.
Style ran a July 12 piece about the "considerable anxiety" in the Times-Dispatch newsroom since a new publisher and editor took over. One of the anonymous sources in that article, ID'd in the piece as a "star reporter," had outed himself in that newspaper's internal online forum, which reporters called the "water cooler," and explained his reasons for speaking with Style. (He had requested management's OK to speak with Style but was turned down.) Within a day of the article's publication, the water cooler was taken off-line.
The newspaper has a written policy that requires the vetting of any interview requests of its employees and the writing of "talking points" if any such interviews are granted. It is outrageous, and you can read it here.
Now, for the true journalism believers left among us, the idea of a company that is in the business of getting people to talk on the record actually gagging its own employees is reprehensible, at least, and hypocritical, at worst.
To the credit of the Media General-owned Tampa daily, there is no such written policy at the Tribune, said Editor Janet Weaver. While officials statements on behalf of the newspaper must come from Weaver or the managing editor, individual reporters are free to speak on their own behalf, she said. Just as some did when she was arrested on DUI charges in May."We're in the business of trying to get people to talk with us," she said.
But Weaver added one important caveat for her scribes: "You just have to know that words have consequences."
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2006.