Council report reflects newsroom’s independence

Someone once said no man can edit a newspaper to the satisfaction of any other. Nor can any news council review a newspaper’s coverage to the satisfaction of that newspaper’s publisher! The Washington News Council’s report presents one view of our coverage of River Park Square, and there are certainly many others.

Here’s mine: Editor Chris Peck and his team faced a very complex and controversial story. They did their best, and in several instances they made a few tough calls that in hindsight they might reconsider. At no time did I or any other member of my family direct any coverage or directly edit any coverage.

Looking back, Chris might have reconsidered using a couple of his weekly columns to advocate for the project, because it shifted him from being perceived as an independent arbiter to being a partisan player. Even in the era of civic journalism, this sacrifice of objectivity was inappropriate, and we both should have recognized it at the time.

Chris might have chosen to be the first to break the details of the Nordstrom lease but did not because he believed the information was not germane to the public debate. I agreed with him.

He might have run coverage of the Coopers & Lybrand report that detailed the risks behind the garage transaction. He did not, because the City Council approved the deal as the report was made public. I did not support this decision.

Chris might have hired a financial expert to help map and explain the intricacies of the public/private partnership between RPS and the city. I suggested that he develop a funds flow map and coverage of similar deals in other cities, but he chose not to, I think to the detriment of our coverage.

The point is, the editor and the newsroom made and continue to make their own decisions about RPS and all other news coverage. That is the charge I gave to Chris 15 years ago, and I believe he and his team lived up to it. I gave Steve Smith that same charge, and I have the same faith in his independence.

While I reject substantially all of the allegations of influence collected in the News Council’s report, I do respect the direction of its recommendations. The moral for me is, it is not enough to operate a newsroom independent of its owners; our newspaper must always take extra steps to help our audience understand that this is indeed the case.