How to cover your boss
I will occasionally get calls from people pitching stories or airing grievances who begin the conversation — usually in a nice way — by saying, “I know George Hearst.” To which I will often reply, “So do I.”
Lots of people know the man who has been the publisher and CEO of the Times Union for the past 14 years and an executive at this paper since 1989. He’s a notable regional philanthropist and investor who has had a hand in projects as diverse as higher education, health care and arena football. He is also the landlord of Forts Ferry Farm, a Colonie business that last week announced on social media that it was shutting down consumer-facing operations at the farm due to frustration with what it views as the town government’s excessive regulation. Town officials say they have handled the farm, which counts our publisher’s daughter, Emma Hearst, as one of its owners, as they would any other business.
Editors and reporters look forward to covering the story of an extracurricular business dispute involving their publisher and/or his family and local officials the same way the average person would relish the notion of a really vigorous gum scraping. The prospects for a lose-lose situation are high: No one wants a ticked-off employer, but journalists also run the risk of readers thinking we’re slanting the story in favor of one party.
The nightmare scenario, of course, is that your outlet’s top executive does something very public and scandalous — as occurred in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s newsroom in February 2019, when its publisher, John Robinson Block, pitched a full-on after-dark tantrum in response to something posted on the union’s newsroom bulletin board. That episode ended up generating a union grievance that served as the basis for much of the subsequent coverage in the familyowned paper and other outlets. The Columbia Journalism Review noted that eyewitnesses said Block appeared to be “intoxicated and enraged.” And that is why every night before bedtime I say a little prayer of thanks that I am not a member of the management team at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
But I digress. In the case of Forts Ferry Farm, the Times Union’s newsroom couldn’t ignore its decision to shut down on-premises retail operations and other programs — it was, as previously noted, all over social media and a topic of much discussion among local foodies. That’s how I found out about it, not from the publisher but in an email sent from a farm patron that included a screenshot of its announcement. Looking away from the situation solely because it involves the publisher’s family would be letting
▶
the Hearst connection distort our reporting through inaction.
Luckily, Steve Barnes, who covers the intersections of food and business better than anyone else, picked up the story and devoted his characteristic craft and balance to the reporting. The only significant counsel I offered Steve — not that he needed it — was that he should pursue it as if the farm were owned and run by an elderly couple named McGillicuddy or Goldfarb. People, in other words, we had never met ... and definitely didn’t work for.
And that’s what he did. To be sure, the resulting story noted the Hearst connection prominently and included comments from other business owners expressing similar concerns about what they claimed were heavy-handed decisions by the town; Colonie officials who chose to respond to questions got to have their say at length. And Steve made sure to note that no one outside the newsroom was involved in the production of the article — though that’s the case for all of our news coverage.
There are other models for news organizations that are obliged to cover stories freighted with potential conflicts of interest, such as hiring freelance reporters and even outside editors to produce the coverage. But those types of stories are usually far heavier in nature than a regulatory dispute.
An example: When the owner of Oregon’s Portland Monthly magazine alleged during a 2019 public appearance that local businessman Gordon Sondland, then the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a supporting player in the first Trump impeachment inquiry, had years earlier engaged in sexual misconduct against her, the magazine partnered with Pro Publica to report the story — and turned up the accounts of other women who related similar experiences with Sondland. He denied any wrongdoing and claimed the women’s independent accounts were “concocted ... and coordinated for political purposes.”
This example springs to mind because — in the interest of even more full disclosure in a piece that’s all about it — my talented sister, Margaret, was and remains a top editor at Portland Monthly. The magazine’s editorial team independently decided to pursue the story and take on Pro Publica as a reporting partner. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for Sondland said the fact that the owner’s allegation kicked off its reporting was “an outlandish conflict of interest.”
I don’t think the travails of Forts Ferry Farm are a big enough deal at this point to warrant that kind of walled-off treatment. But in business and journalism, you never quite know what’s going to happen next.