by Tony Palmeri

December 19, 2001

After Oshkosh Area School District Board of Education member Michael Stratz told me that he would provide me with a copy of a memo written by Superintendent Ron Heilmann regarding unfair and inaccurate fall referendum reporting/editorializing by the Oshkosh Northwestern, I anxiously looked forward to the memo's arrival. Like a poor man's Bob Woodward, I thought the memo might be a deep throat style "smoking gun" able to prove that the Northwestern crossed all lines of journalistic ethics in its zeal to defeat the referendum.

Mr. Stratz e-mailed me the memo yesterday. My verdict: the memo is not a smoking gun, but neither is it mere sour grapes.

Newspapers are at their worst when they act with what the great Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) called "actual malice." A newspaper is guilty of actual malice when it publishes statements with knowledge that the statements are false or with reckless disregard of whether the statements are false or not. Heilmann's memo does demonstrate that at least some of the Northwestern's reporting and editorializing about the referendum was careless, sloppy, contradictory, and prone to substituting cheap shots (those are my words, not Heilmann's) for sound journalistic judgement. While I can certainly understand why some in the school district would be upset about this kind of reporting and editorializing, I also believe that several things must be said in the paper's defense:

• The paper did publish letters and op-eds that disagreed with their position on the referendum. Perhaps they did not publish as many pro-referendum pieces as some in the district would have liked, but as a citizen I did feel that the pro-referendum position came through in the paper (especially in the last two weeks leading up to the election).
• From October 27-November 4, the Northwestern did publish a series of in-depth reports by Eric Bradley on the major referendum issues. The stories were for the most part well-researched, balanced, and provided a reader with enough information to make an intelligent choice on election day. I personally would have preferred that these Bradley pieces appeared much earlier, but the fact that they appeared at all means that the editors were operating according to some standard of fairness.
• Careless, sloppy, contradictory, cheap-shot journalism is not unique to the Oshkosh Northwestern. Deadlines, personal biases, getting up on the wrong side of the bed, and other human foibles make it inevitable that this kind of journalism will slip into every newspaper on occasion. Of course no reporter or editor will ever admit to carelessness or taking cheap shots, but neither will most school board members ever admit to withholding information, not carefully examining a policy or budget before voting on it, or other less than stately behaviors.

So, Heilmann's memo is not a smoking gun.

But neither is the memo mere sour grapes written by a Superintendent upset at losing the referendum to school board members equally upset. We have to remember that the Gannett corporation, in its statement of principles concerning news room ethics, has set very high standards for its editors and reporters. While I can understand why Mr. Rieckman would not enjoy reading the Heilmann memo, a more appropriate response to it from him would be to thank Heilmann and Stratz instead of accusing them of a sour grapes campaign. Rieckman of course does not have to agree with Heilmann's conclusions, but how is he to know if the newspaper has drifted away from its stated standards unless readers tell him? By brushing aside Heilmann's and Stratz's concerns as mere sour grapes, is Rieckman telling us that he is not ready to take a critical look at the way his paper covers emotional issues like a school referendum?

Rieckman in his column of December 9 issued an open invitation to Stratz to meet with him or the editorial board to air his concerns. I think what would be much healthier for the community would be for Stratz and/or Heilmann to appear with Rieckman on "Commentary" in the spring. A public airing of differences with Mr. Mather and I as moderators would represent, in my opinion, a healthy attempt to help citizens understand the rift. Who knows, maybe as a result of such a public discussion Mr. Stratz might even resubscribe to the newspaper.

Return to Commentary