Maine Newspaper Responds to Conflict-of-Interest Accusations — Two Editors Recuse Themselves
In the wake of questions from the blogosphere about the paper's political neutrality, two members of the Bangor Daily News editorial staff have agreed to recuse themselves from all coverage of the Maine Senate race.
On the right, executive editor Mark Woodward served as press secretary to Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) for ten months in 1996 and 1997. His wife, Bridget Woodward, is a local caseworker in the Senator's Bangor district office, though she is retiring at the end of the month. The paper first came under fire for this connection over an editorial hitting the campaign of Congressman Tom Allen, the Democratic Senate candidate, for sending a tracker to videotape Collins out on the campaign trail.
On the left, the paper's news editor in charge of political coverage is Tim Allen, a first cousin of Tom Allen.
Both Woodward and Allen have said in an editorial announcement that it is in the paper's best interests to remove any appearance of a conflict of interest, and thus Senate race coverage will be handled by other editors at the paper who do not have any personal or professional connections to the candidates.
Comments (14)
bob wrote on September 8, 2007 6:02 PM:You know, that's actually pretty refreshing. They probably should have done it a long time ago, but at least they responded to legitimate criticism by taking it seriously and doing something to fix it, rather than offering BS explanations (although I realize they sort of did so at first).
You almost never see any MSM outlets react to criticism with a shred of decency or proper contemplation.
Daniel wrote on September 8, 2007 6:45 PM:The blogosphere has done an amzing job at knocking Collins down her pedestral, driving the race to a good pick-up opportunity. Check out these Senate Rankings.
tom wrote on September 8, 2007 9:45 PM:Indeed, refreshing.
Nice to see ethics still has a place in news media, even if brow-beaten to do so.
jim wrote on September 8, 2007 9:47 PM:>You know, that's actually pretty refreshing.
Under Woodward, the Bangor Daily Dreadful has actually got a whole lot better than it was when I first came to little old Bangor, Maine, in the mid-1980's. In fact, given the BDN's centrist to slightly liberal bent these days, I was surprised to learn that Woodward had Republican leanings. He's transformed it into a decent paper.
Would that WaPo's editorial staff would be so honorable.
barkleyg wrote on September 8, 2007 11:08 PM:Those stinkin blogofacists! Making the Bangor Daily News admit that 2 of it's editors have close relationships to both campaigns. Taking away their freedom of speech, so they can't write biaed articles anymore, without disclosing their relationships to Chicken-hawk Collins and that Collins, who has the nerve to protest King GeorgeOh where have all of our privacy rights gone!
Disgusting I say, just Disgusting. I want biased stories that I don't know are written by biased reporters!
barkleyg wrote on September 8, 2007 11:23 PM:Can't even keep my names straight. It should be Tom Collins who has the nerve to criticize King George. Sorry Susan for saying that you had a spine; my mistake and no harm meant.
gratuitous wrote on September 9, 2007 12:15 AM:Something similar happened in Oregon during one of Bob Packwood's Senate campaigns. The state's largest newspaper, the Oregonian, ran a weekly column by Gerry Frank, local businessman (of the Meier & Frank department store), who just happened to be Packwood's campaign manager.
Frank's column dealt mostly with events about town, travel tips (he wrote "Where to Find It, Buy It, and Eat It in New York City") and similar light topics. I wrote the Oregonian to ask them whether running Frank's column might not present some kind of difficulty. The public editor pooh-poohed my concerns, but said if I ever saw anything in Frank's column that might look like a politically slanted piece, I should write again.
I wrote back and said that anything political Frank might write in his column wasn't the point; the fact that the state's largest newspaper was running a column for a Senator running for re-election was conflict enough, and besides, if Frank did put something political in his column, complaining about it afterward wasn't going to be sufficient to unring the bell.
I didn't hear anything back, but a few weeks later, the Oregonian stopped running Frank's column for the duration of the election season. Something about reader concerns and the appearance of partiality. While not specifically credited, I felt vindicated.
It was shortly after winning his last election that Mr. Packwood's Russian hands and Roman tongue brought about his political downfall. The Oregonian had some of the story prior to the election, but chose not run any of it; it was left to the Washington Post to break the story.
Doofus wrote on September 9, 2007 7:47 AM:In addition to congratulating the paper for taking these steps, we still have to ask: Why did the management of the paper allow these conflicts of interest to exist to begin with? Newspapers with integrity prevent such conflicts from the get-go by making sure that certain people don't cover, or editorialize about, people or things to whom they have a personal, financial or other interest. That it took an outcry from the blogsophere in this case to force the recusals that should have been instituted from the get-go speaks volumes about the integrity of this paper. It also makes you wonder what other papers have unidentified, and unaddressed, conflicts that unduly affect their news and editorial coverage.
shortstop wrote on September 9, 2007 10:25 AM:I'm less interested in congratulating the BDN for finally doing the right thing than I am in asking them how they allowed this situation to begin with. Like Doofus, I wonder why it took bulldogging from the blogs to get these people to do what any publication of integrity and ethics would have done long ago.
That the BDN apparently could not see the problem is illustrative of the insiders' club mentality at the base of so much of the abysmal political and policy coverage that now substitutes for responsible reporting.
Phoenix Woman wrote on September 9, 2007 11:05 AM:The blogosphere has done an amzing job at knocking Collins down her pedestral, driving the race to a good pick-up opportunity. Check out these Senate Rankings.
Yup, and it was Firedoglake (FDL for short) that took the lead (and bore the brunt of Collins' silly and self-defeating counterattacks) in going after Collins.
iamtfc wrote on September 9, 2007 11:31 AM:Shortstop, it might be worth pointing out that conflicts of this kind are fairly common in a state with a total population of 1.3 million. There's one degree of separation between everyone in the state, it seems to me as someone From Away. This is particular true north of Portland, where there just isn't a huge influx of outsiders. Props to the BDN for doing this, though.
We have it covered over @Turn Maine Blue, folks. What utter b/s.
We have a related issue (I perceive that Dutson's behind it, or one of his kiddie script buddies).
If you glance @TMB's right-hand LeftyBlog Maine BlogRoll sidebar, someone late last night perped one of our members' old Blogger domain accounts (and no way does he want his reputation associated w/a porno site).
He assumed that he'd deleted it approx. 5-6 weeks ago; and it didn't turn out that way.
We have no idea how to get rid of it; and he's away from a computer connection today--attending a conference (he's a county Dem. committee officer; and certainly doesn't want any flack or his reputation associated, pertaining to said issue).
I have his email addy & phone number, re: contact info--do any of you have a clue, re: what we can do?
Thanks a bunch~
iamtfc, I'm aware that media outlets in states (and cities) with populations this small have a harder time findng fresh blood to cover these issues. However, it's essential that they address these problems head on if they want to maintain credibility; to pretend the conflict doesn't exist is not only irresponsible journalism but also promotes the image of the publication as a podunk club that can't be bothered to even care about appearances of impropriety.
It's too bad BDN didn't take the initiative on its own to recuse Woodward and Allen from coverage of the Senate race from the get-go. It's too bad they dragged their heels for so long after being confronted about this--not a good indication that they actually get it. Hell, as far as I can tell, they've never even done a simple disclosure statement on this topic. Amateur hour all around.
