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February 2000
No More Virgins
An internal Los Angeles Times memo about the controversy
Much of the concern over the Los Angeles Times/Staples Center controversy grew out of searching internal analysis by journalists at the newspaper. Terence Monmaney, a 16-year journalism veteran and one of the Times' medical writers, detailed his concerns in a memo to the paper's editor and publisher. David Shaw, the Times1 staff media reporter enlisted to investigate the potential conflict of interest, quoted Monmaney's memo in his findings, which the paper published in a special section. Below is the text of the memo:
To: Kathryn Downing, Michael Parks. Leo Wolinsky, Narda Zacchino, David Shaw
From: Terence Monmaney, Staff Writer
Date: November 10, 1999
RE: 3 points about the Staples incident that need to be explicit or emphasized
The Staples arrangement hinders one of the big jobs that this newspaper performs: exposing hidden conflicts of interest at important institutions. Buried conflicts of interest undermine the democratic ideal of openness, and serious news organizations play a vital role exposing them to public scrutiny. The Times has published about 1,700 stories containing the phrase "conflict of interest" since 1996 -- an average of more than a story a day. That is a rough measure of both the pervasiveness of the problem and the newspaper's vigilance in pursuing it. Now, though, reporters and editors undertaking the already onerous task of rooting out conflicts of interest face the additional obstacle of the newspaper's hypocrisy on this very issue. So the Staples incident not only damages the newspaper's hard-won reputation, it may also hamper the newspaper's ability to perform a vital watchdog function -- and may thus diminish the society we live in.
The newsroom's resistance to adopting the goals, concepts and language of the business side is misconstrued. We are encouraged to think of the paper as a product or promotional vehicle, to consider what readers and consumers want and give it to them, to huddle with the business side and see things from its vantage. Newsroom refusal to do so is viewed as
arrogance or naiveté. But we shun the business side's view of the craft not because it clashes with a fanciful view of our self-importance; rather, because it is inadequate, if not plain wrong. For one thing, many important stories would fail as consumer products because they do not satisfy readers1 tastes. Few readers clamor for close analyses of the transportation authority's budget, yet our coverage of that institution benefits them anyway. Moreover, stories serve many millions of people locally and nationally who may not realize that the information behind improvements in their schools, cops, hospitals and government (among other things) got into the public domain as a result of this newspaper's determined efforts. Few businesses strive to market a product that helps people who do not buy it, yet journalists aim to do just that -- by pumping into society the oxygen of news. That is why business-side talk of the paper as a "product" and of readers as "customers" makes no sense to journalists.
The theory that editorial can withstand pressures from the business side is flawed: When Mark Willes took over four years ago and proposed tearing down the wall between business and editorial, there was an uproar. The publisher and editor responded by saying that the editorial side would hold the line, that the newspaper's assurance against corrupting commercial influence was the editor's personal integrity. But the Staples incident shows that a business-side venture can undermine editorial integrity without the editor's knowledge that the newspaper's ethics are even being challenged.
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