Groups that won’t talk shouldn’t complain

Benjamin J. Marrison

One of the most frustrating situations a journalist faces is when the subject of a news story refuses to answer questions, yet complains after publication that they were treated unfairly. It’s something an editor watches closely, because fairness is a cornerstone of good journalism.

It typically involves people who aren’t used to being in the news, which is understandable. They might be afraid of saying the wrong thing, or they might wrongly think that if they don’t talk the story won’t appear.

Sometimes, however, the situation arises with people who employ the silent treatment as a strategy that they perceive as a defense mechanism.

We experienced the latter in reporting a story on May 24. The group at the center of it was very public with its criticism after publication, and I thought you’d be interested in the back story.

We published the story about the Columbus Crawl for Cancer on Page One, with a headline that said: “Bar crawl benefits charity — and itself.” Reporter Rita Price explained that the group that organized the barhopping crawl is a for-profit company. CFC says it contributed 26 percent of the money it raised in 2012 to charity, with 74 percent going for expenses — including taxes, salaries and supplies that include the beer participants drink.

Price explained in the story that because CFC is a for-profit company, it is not required to disclose as much information as nonprofit organizations.

In 2012, CFC voluntarily reported that it had $1.23 million in gross receipts, with operating, wage and tax expenses totaling $908,808. It said it donated $327,176 to charities that year. Those who study charities say those ratios should be reversed for fundraising events: 75 percent to the charities, and 25 percent for expenses.

Price made contact with a Crawl for Cancer representative, who said she’d be “happy” to answer questions. Three times we were told that the organization would do so, only to be told ultimately that the spokesperson was too busy.

No one, of course, is obligated to answer anything. And our approach to such stories is that

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we'll write a fair story with your comments or without them. But you lose a lot of standing in the complaint department after publication if you didn’t talk with us when we were reporting the story.

But when CFC complained anyway — not directly to us, but on its website and on Facebook — it raised questions in our minds, chiefly: You deride our story as being “biased journalism,” yet you wouldn’t enlighten us with the information we sought? I call “bunk.” The unsigned posting on Facebook and the company’s website said: “There’s one fact that biased journalism tends to leave out of its reporting: Unlike a charity, Crawl for Cancer receives no free money. ... ALL of our revenue comes from selling things. Things that we have to pay for first. That includes beer. ... We’re only a ‘for-profit’ because we have no alternative. Here’s what we do instead: We donate 100 percent of our profit to the charities we serve.”

Charity experts tell us that the company could file as a charity if its leaders so desired. But even if they don’t want to file as a nonprofit, the company leaders could be transparent by listing executive salaries (the group says it paid out $176,000 in salaries in 2012). There’s no prohibition against revealing the costs of T-shirts, or how much they pay for beer or other expenses, so participants would know whether the “markup” is reasonable.

This story wasn’t a “gotcha.” It was a fact-based report about how one company operates — a story to let readers know that this wasn’t a charity event, but one run by a money-making group that says it gives a quarter of its revenue to charities. I could find no accounting on its website, though, for how the money is distributed.

Curious about whether other news organizations had reported on the company’s finances, I found one story published in 2010 by The Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City. The newspaper reported that officials did not respond to requests for interviews for its story.