Attending the hearing was the complainant, Joe Rudberg, Becker City Administrator, and Dave Hinnenkamp, Becker City Auditor with the firm of Kern, DeWenter, Viere. Representing the Sherburne County Citizen was Jake Jacobson, editor and publisher. Also attending, at the News Council’s request, was Jerry Mahoney, a municipal bond specialist recently retired from the law firm of Dorsey Whitney.

Background: On June 8, 1996, the Citizen published an article entitled “Becker’s Bonded Debt is $50 Million.” It began with an “Editor’s Note” that read, “This is the first in a two part series. It is an article not authorized by the city, with much of the financial information coming from county records.” The article calculated the city’s debt to be almost $30,000 per man, woman and child, and suggested that if Northern States Power, which pays 94% of the city’s taxes, ever pays less or closes its Becker plant, the citizens could be responsible for the debt.

Complaint: Rudberg complained that the article misled readers about the city’s bonded indebtedness and financial condition through a series of inaccuracies and omissions. He complained that the Citizen failed to list a variety of revenue sources used to pay taxes, leaving the impression that property tax payers must carry all the weight, and that it didn’t apportion indebtedness to parties other than the city itself. Rudberg also complained that the Editor’s Note was misleading in that the city never authorizes any article the newspaper publishes, thus implying that the article was exposing something the city was trying to hide.

Rudberg claimed the article was written to do him harm and to embarrass the city because it does not place its official advertising in the paper. Among the factual errors Rudberg cited:

• The paper reported Rudberg started his job as city administrator in about 1990; he was hired in July 1992.
• Many of the projects the article attributed to Rudberg, such as the building of a community center, were begun before he became the city administrator, and some of the projects were a result of voter referendums. Rudberg said the wrongful attribution implied that he intended to capitalize on the city’s huge tax capacity.
• The article reported that he was, “following the city’s master plan that has been put together by Hoingston Kuegler, a Twin Cities public relations firm.” Rudberg said Hoingston Kuegler is not a public relations firm, but a planning firm specializing in land use and environmental planning and design.
• The article asserted that he joined the city with little experience in running city business affairs. Rudberg has a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Studies and had been employed for the previous 8 1/2 years as a city administrator in North Branch, MN.

Response: Editor Jacobson, who wrote the story, responded that his paper had performed a public service by informing readers that the city, with fewer than 950 registered voters, was in danger of being overwhelmed by debt if revenues from Northern States Power declined. He admitted the story contained some inaccuracies, but believed the small mistakes did not discredit the story as a whole. He said readers have a right to know what their elected officials are doing, specifically if the city is bonding beyond normal guidelines.

Jacobson contended that Becker city officials are not accustomed to investigative reporting and resent it, and, as a result, have steered business away from the newspaper, hurting it financially. Nonetheless, he denied the article was vengeful and said it contained no bias, just accurate financial information.

Jacobson said he wrote the Editor’s Note because before he became the publisher three years ago, the newspaper in a nearby town covered news in Becker by publishing the equivalent of city council meeting minutes without digging into issues.

Discussion: Council member Carol Pine asked Jacobson to describe his attempts to contact Rudberg for the story. Jacobson said he made two phone calls on each of two days but was unable to reach Rudberg and had to leave messages with a secretary. He said he quit trying to contact Rudberg when a city council member told him that Rudberg was unhappy with the Citizen’s coverage of the city and was unlikely to return his call. Rudberg disagreed, saying he never received a message from Jacobson about this story, nor did he ever tell anyone that he wouldn’t return Jacobson’s calls.

Council member Don Smith asked why Rudberg let months pass before complaining. Rudberg responded that he feared retribution from the Citizen, which he said had a habit of getting the last word. He said although he contacted the News Council shortly after the article was published, he waited several months to submit his complaint because he was apprehensive about using the process. Council member Jim Pumarlo asked Jacobson if he received complaints about this story from other readers. Jacobson said a neighboring town’s paper received a letter of complaint, but that he had not received any other complaints.

Council member Maureen Reeder asked Jacobson why he published the Editor’s Note. He explained he wanted to make sure his readers understood the information was not spoon-fed to him by the city. Council member Jim Wychor asked Jacobson if he’d ever written an Editor’s Note that said a story had been authorized by the city. Jacobson replied that he had not.

Referring to a letter Jacobson sent to Rudberg on October 15, 1996, Council member Mollie Hoben asked Jacobson what he meant by, “what eventually emerges from slanted or inaccurate stories is fact.” He said he meant that a newspaper can’t always know all of the information when publishing a story but that readers will call the paper to account and the truth will emerge.

Council member Nedra Wicks asked if the city of Becker has a greater debt burden than other cities of similar size. Becker Auditor Hinnenkamp explained statutes define a city’s legal debt margin as 2% of the city’s market value. Because Becker’s value is assessed at $700 million, it carries a $14 million legal debt margin. After subtracting the types of debt that do not apply to the calculation, the auditor said, Becker is actually well below its legal debt margin. He also said that while figuring debt per capita, as the Citizen did, is one measurement tool, it does not account for the fact that an expanding city, like Becker, tends to have high debt because the population growth has not had time to match commercial growth.

Council member Tom Keller asked Jacobson how the negative comments about Rudberg’s personal style contributed to the thrust of the story. Jacobson said that this was not strictly a financial story, and in balancing positive and negative quotes from different people about Rudberg he was trying to relate the “who” of the story.

Determination: Most members agreed that although the article was far from flawless, it did attempt to shed light on an important issue. Pine suggested that if the story misled readers, it did so through omissions and a lack of context necessary for readers to understand a complex story. Wicks agreed, saying she was troubled by the lack of research on a difficult and complex topic, which led her to believe that the story was not driven by a real intent to educate the public. Conner said the article would have been better had it explained the information brought out in the Council’s discussion. Nonetheless, she applauded the paper for taking on a difficult issue. Council member Tom Keller likened the story to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, saying it slants drastically but stops short of crashing.

Some members felt the personal information about Rudberg contained in the story was gratuitous and detracted from the seriousness of the story. Many were bothered by the Editor’s Note. Council member John Kostouros called it a poorly worded way of expressing that Rudberg had not returned Jacobson’s calls.

Reeder said that as a public official, Rudberg had a duty and responsibility to be a source of information for the media. By not doing so, “You get the press you deserve,” she said. At the same time, Reeder faulted the Citizen for writing about Rudberg’s personality without making extraordinary attempts to contact him. While Hoben agreed that Rudberg had a responsibility to be a source, she argued the paper had a greater responsibility to do the work of putting together the story.

Determination #1: The Council denied the complaint that the article misled readers about the city’s finances.

Concurring: Amaris, Conner, Hage, Keller, Kostouros, Pine, Reeder, Sellers, Van Pilsum, Wychor

Dissenting: Hoben, Pumarlo, Smith, Thompson, Wicks

Abstaining: Anderson, LeGrand

Determination #2: The Council upheld the complaint that the Citizen was unfair in its reporting of Rudberg’s role in city projects and finances.

Concurring: Amaris, Hage, Hoben, LeGrand, Keller, Pine, Pumarlo, Reeder, Sellers, Smith, Thompson, Van Pilsum, Wicks, Wychor

Dissenting: Conner, Kostouros

Abstaining: Anderson

Tags: Sherburne County Citizen

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 1997 at 8:41 am and is filed under 1997, Complaint Denied/Upheld, Editorial and Opinion, Hearings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.