Story on hospital sale delayed

Empire Health Services officials cooperated with a Spokane TV station on stories about the proposed sale of two hospitals and other holdings weeks before the information was released to employees, doctors and the public.

An Empire Health spokeswoman acknowledged this week that crews from KHQ-TV agreed to delay reporting about the potential sale to Community Health Systems Inc. of Tennessee in exchange for access to proprietary information and corporate officials before the June 14 public announcement that Empire had signed an intent-to-sell agreement with CHS.

“We said, ‘Know that we have an embargo on this information,’ ” said Becky Swanson, Empire’s spokeswoman. “They were willing to accept the embargo.”

Swanson said the television station approached her about the story, and she wasn’t sure how KHQ staff members knew that a final agreement was pending.

In April, The Spokesman-Review reported that Community Health Systems was the front-runner in a possible sale.

KHQ is owned by the Cowles Co., which also owns The Spokesman-Review.

The handling of the announcement raises questions about Empire’s commitment to provide fair and accurate information about the process, representatives from the hospital employees’ union said Thursday.

“Transparency is important to the community,” said Chris Barton, secretary-treasurer of SEIU 1199NW, which represents 1,400 Empire Health employees.

Barton said she was impressed with the number of detailed reports that appeared on KHQ-TV within minutes of the official announcement of the agreement – but puzzled about their content.

“Clearly, when I looked at the (TV reports), you couldn’t have written it better for the company,” she said. “It was pretty clear to me that in exchange for an exclusive, they had agreed to do some positive background work.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, said Patricia McRae, station manager at KHQ-TV, which sent a crew to Easton, Pa., earlier this month to film a segment on a hospital acquired by Community Health Systems.

Her staff produced a thorough series of news stories about the proposed sale based on a tip from a solid source and careful reporting.

“This was our story. We dug. We just did the due diligence,” said McRae, who was irked that The Spokesman-Review raised the issue. “It’s kind of sad that you guys are dragging us down when we did a great story.”

McRae said her reporters “took a chance” that the time and expense of traveling to Pennsylvania to interview executives, employees and clients of Easton Hospital would pay off.

She said her staff had been working on the story for a month but couldn’t air the stories earlier than June 14, not because Empire asked them to hold off, but because officials wouldn’t confirm the agreement until then.

“Did we hold those stories? No, we did advance coverage,” she added.

Swanson and McRae said there were no constraints placed on KHQ sources, subjects or questions for their story. The TV station paid its own expenses for the trip, McRae said.

Swanson, however, said that KHQ agreed not to air the information before Empire’s release date.

“The answer would have been, ‘We’ll have to chat later,’ ” she said.

Access to the Easton hospital was granted by CHS officials, Swanson said. Rosemary Plorin, a spokeswoman for the hospital system, said last week that she wouldn’t comment on any sale until it was complete. Plorin didn’t return a phone call on Thursday.

Swanson said Empire’s goal was to notify employees, doctors and volunteers first. However, KHQ reporters were allowed to interview board members Ron McKay and Judy Cole on Wednesday, June 13, after the agreement was signed, Swanson said. Employees and others were notified of the deal at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 14. A press release to other media outlets went out at about 9:45 a.m.

That violates the traditional terms of a journalism “embargo,” said Steve Buttry, an ethics expert and director of Tailored Programs for the American Press Institute.

An embargo, typically, is when a news source releases information in advance to all media outlets at once, with instructions to wait for a specific release date.

Journalists may or may not honor that request.

The Spokesman-Review’s ethics policy generally prohibits embargoes or other arrangements to withhold information.

It also violates common practice among area hospitals, said Maureen Goins, a spokeswoman for Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

“For a major announcement you have the responsibility to release it to all the media the same time,” she said. “Whether they did or not, I don’t know.”

The important question, Buttry said, is whether a journalist is acting on behalf of readers and viewers – or sources.

“I can’t say this is awful, unethical journalism and they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said. “But I would be real hesitant to sit on something for a month, if I had been on the trail of it.”

Some viewers didn’t mind KHQ’s apparent arrangement with Empire. Dr. Brian Seppi, president of the group that represents 800 doctors, said the way the news is released isn’t nearly as important as the substance.

“In terms of the physicians, that’s not an issue,” he said.

But for employees and others who’ve endured Empire’s downturn and turnaround during the past several years, the way information is released is vital, Barton said.

“This is a huge change for this hospital system,” she said. “There needs to be more openness about that.”