Determination 101: Minnesota Department of Health v. KSTP-TV
The health department alleges that KSTP presented an inaccurate and unfair picture of activities at a department retreat at Ruttger’s Bay Lake Lodge, near Brainerd, in the fall of 1993. The TV report implied that workers were playing, at taxpayer’s expense, when they should have been working and that the retreat could have been held elsewhere for less expense. Additionally, they say a hidden camera was used under circumstances where such use violated ethical journalistic practices.
Attending the hearing on behalf of the Minnesota Department of Health were Buddy Ferguson, public information officer; Jennifer Norberg, director of public affairs; Christine Rice, assistant commissioner; Christine Everson, assistant division director; and Henry Gretsfeld and Randy Ziemann, employees. The management of KSTP-TV declined to participate.
Background: On November 18, 1993, KSTP aired a story by investigative reporter Joel Grover focusing on the use and cost of outstate resorts as meeting sites for state government. Included in the report was a segment on the annual meeting of the Minnesota Department of Health Environmental Health Division, which was held at Ruttger’s Bay Lake Lodge resort in October.
The health department complains that the story was inaccurate in both fact and implication. It alleges several inaccuracies and omissions:
- The story made no mention of the actual purpose of the meeting, except to say “Officials say that it’s helpful to get their employees out of town and away from the office.” The department had recently undergone reorganization and had a new division director. The goals of the meeting were to explain the changes, improve communications among geographically distant employees, and to build a team. For these reasons they wanted all employees housed together.
- The story failed to note that 1/3 of the division’s 200 employees live and work outside the Twin Cities area and that this was one of the main reasons for holding the meeting outstate.
- The story inaccurately described the daily activities. The reporter said, “For five hours a day, the workers attended meetings. The rest of the day was mostly leisure time - golfing, playing tennis, and just hanging out in the bar. But the employees get paid for a full eight hours of work.” In fact, the department says, there were 6-1/2 hours of meetings, including working lunches and, by union contract, 90 minutes of travel time allotted to employees on each of the two days of the meeting.
- Through the use of stock footage showing people playing tennis and golf, the report implied that employees were doing likewise. But during a meeting between the department and KSTP, the reporter admitted that he had no footage showing employees engaging in those activities.
- The report implied that substantial savings could have been realized by using the Earle Brown Center at the University of Minnesota, but the department, upon further investigation, concluded that the savings would have been minimal or none at all. It complains that the reporter did not consider the department’s objectives for holding the meeting and that the Earle Brown Center would not have fulfilled those objectives.
The department also complains about the use of a hidden camera. It feels that such use was unnecessary, as this was an open meeting, and that by saying a hidden camera was used it created, according to Ferguson, “the impression that it was a secretive, troublesome activity we wanted to shield from the light of day.”
Further, the department complains of invasion of privacy. The reporter said he was invited to attend the meeting by employees who were unhappy with the amount of money being spent. These employees would not agree to go on camera. Two other employees did appear on tape, faces digitally altered, questioning the department’s decision to spend $15,000 on the meeting. These employees did not know they were being taped. One employee was engaged in a private conversation with his supervisor at the Lodge bar, after the first day’s meetings. The other employee said he was speaking to a couple at the bar who identified themselves as a lawyer and her unemployed boyfriend, who he now thinks were the video crew. He, too, thought he was engaged in a private conversation.
The department cited the Society for Professional Journalists’s guidelines on appropriate use of a hidden camera. The guidelines suggest that deception may be appropriate in cases when all other ways of getting the information have been exhausted, when a systemic failure at top levels of government or business is being exposed, when the harm prevented by the reporting outweighs any harm caused, and when the reporter is willing to disclose the deception and why they used it. In this case, the department asserts, the hidden camera was not used to gain information, which the reporter had already received, but was used to get a sound bite. Its use did not document wrongdoing, but perhaps unwise use of state funds amounting to, at most, $4,000. And its effect on the employees was anger, embarrassment and poor morale.
Discussion: Assistant Commissioner Rice was asked if she was consulted by the reporter before the story appeared. She said she had a long interview with Grover and gave him accurate information about the schedule of the meeting, which he did not use in his story. Media member Don Smith pointed out that she had been quoted twice in the story and had been given a chance to rebut Grover’s findings - didn’t she think that was fair? Rice said, “Does it look like an attempt at balance? I guess so. Was it a fair representation of what I said? No.” She complained of selective editing. The interview, she said, took more than an hour and was reduced to a few sentences.
Media member Kate Parry asked the department why it felt there was an invasion of privacy if this was an open meeting. Ferguson said that this question was open to debate and they would like to see the News Council create that kind of public debate. He said, “They used the camera to obtain interview material taken from presumed private conversations. Where are the boundaries? Is there such a thing as a private conversation in a public place or should you always speak as if your conversation is going to be broadcast to a couple of hundred thousand people?”
Department employee Henry Gretsfeld said that his statement was taken out of context and that it misrepresented his true feelings. Employee Randy Ziemann said that he believed the camera crew lied about their identity and took his statement out of context.
Media member Maureen Reeder asked the employees if a statement could have been obtained another way. Would they have agreed to make a statement if they had appeared in silhouette? Ziemann said he would have been willing to discuss the issue of cost but he wouldn’t have said what he said.
Media member Kate Stanley said, “Opinions from employees concerning the legitimacy of the gathering were important and of public interest. Since he (Grover) couldn’t get one to stand in front of a camera, this was his last choice.” Ferguson said this was Grover’s contention, and that he (Grover) felt that because other employees had invited him, he had a basis for his actions. But Ferguson questioned whether the employees should be made accountable for casual statements made in a fairly private setting.
Determination 1 - Inaccuracy: The Council upheld the grievance that KSTP presented an inaccurate and unfair picture of Minnesota Department of Health meeting activities at Ruttger’s Bay Lake Lodge. Public member Sandra Peterson said she got a very negative impression of public employees from the piece. She said these kinds of meetings can be very valuable tools and they are expensive. Media member John Kostouros said, “It was pretty one sided. The only attempt to balance it was a few comments from the health department. He (Grover) could have asked, ‘Did you need to spend all this money?’ I think these people had a good reason. He didn’t give them a chance to make their case. It was sloppy.” Stanley agreed, “He (Grover) didn’t want the facts to get in the way of a good thesis. Was it a waste? My feeling is, it was not.” Media member Trish Van Pilsum dissented, reminding the Council that the overall story was not about the Department of Health and its $15,000 meeting, but about statewide spending at resorts and that this was a systemic problem, resulting in a $1 million bill to taxpayers. She felt KSTP was fairly responsive to the department and that overall the report was fair.
Concurring: Hilger, Hoben, Kostouros, Parry, Pumarlo, Smith, Stanley, Peterson, Pine, Sellers
Dissenting: Reeder, Van Pilsum
Abstaining: Simonett
Determination 2 - Unethical use of a hidden camera: The Council upheld the grievance that the use of a hidden camera in this instance violated ethical journalistic practices. Council members acknowledged that the conversation changes when a reporter enters a room, and there is value in a reporter’s anonymity. Member Mollie Hoben said, “If a reporter had just shown up, yes, there is a great chance the meeting would change, but the meetings weren’t even presented, only after-meeting time…. (This) was an issue of profound importance, but that is offset by the lack of exhaustive attempts to get the information.”
Member Jim Pumarlo found the taping of employees on personal time objectionable. “Are they fair game from 6 a.m. to midnight? I have a problem with that.” Kostouros said “The real question is, do public employees have a right to a private life? I say yes, but in the journalistic community, they are saying no.” Van Pilsum said, “I do think public employees have a right to a private life, but (taping a) discussion of government spending in a public bar is not an invasion (of privacy).”
Parry agreed, “How would we feel if a newspaper reporter took notes of a private conversation and wrote it?” She felt the SPJ guidelines were problematic. “…The problem is, you don’t know what information you will gain before you go in. The SPJ standard seems to require clairvoyance.”
Reeder pointed out that the essential information needed for the story could have been provided without deception. She suggested the reporter could have paraphrased complaining employees’ statements, could have taken those statements in written form and put them on the screen, or could have taken the employees’ complaints over the telephone and disguised their voices.
Concurring: Hoben, Kostouros, Pumarlo, Reeder, Smith, Peterson, Pine, Sellers
Dissenting: Hilger, Parry, Stanley, Van Pilsum
Abstaining: Simonett
Dissenting Opinion: Hilger - I could not support the motion that the use of hidden cameras was unethical. I did not have sufficient information from the reporter Joel Grover, who did not attend the hearing. It is too bad KSTP won’t defend its news practices at a public forum.
The real story he (Grover) may have missed was the admission by Department of Health people that they don’t have a line-item budget for such conclaves. They apparently just appropriate the money from various funds. Any business that did that would be in trouble.
Dissenting Opinion: Parry, Stanley, Van Pilsum - We do not agree that use of a hidden camera in this case violated ethical journalistic practices. The hidden camera interviews of public employees took place at a bar, an establishment in which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. The interview subjects spoke openly, in front of strangers and in one case, in front of a supervisor, about their reservations about the conference expenses, an important issue in the story and a matter of public interest. Clearly, a newspaper reporter using a notebook rather than a camera would have had access to those statements.
There appears to have been no other means of getting those comments for the story. Several state employees had already declined on-camera interviews. In addition, the interview subjects themselves admit they would not have been so candid had the reporter identified himself or the camera been in plain view.
KSTP took steps to mask the identity of the interview subjects, minimizing any damage to the individuals and making it clear the target of the story was the state and its policies, not the interview subjects.
Clearly, the use of a hidden camera at the Department of Health meeting did not reveal any misconduct on the part of department employees. That alone does not rule out hidden camera technology as a reasonable means of gathering information. KSTP could not have anticipated what the cameras would capture when first planning the story.
NOTE: In KSTP’s June 10 letter in which it declined to participate in the hearing, Harold Crump, president and general manager, cited conflict of interest on the part of two council members because they are involved in a legal action against KSTP for a different investigative report by the same reporter. Bob Covington brought the case of Expertech v. KSTP to the attention of the media, and Ron Handberg is a paid expert witness for the plaintiff. In compliance with News Council procedures, these members recused themselves from this hearing.
Tags: KSTP-TV