Determination 129: Winona County Board of Commissioners v. Winona Post
The Winona Post ran an editorial critical of the practices of the Winona County Board of Commissioners following a committee of the board meeting on January 9, 2001. After reading an incorrect report in the Winona Daily News that said the board had decided to buy a former school building in an effort to recover lost office space after a courthouse flood, the Post’s editor called the board and obtained a denial of the report. The editor concluded that if such a decision had been made, it would have to have been at an illegal meeting.
The County Board had, in fact, authorized exploration of the school purchase, and not the purchase itself. The Board then complained about what it saw as an accusation of wrongdoing that could cost its members re-election, fines or removal from office.
The editor wrote another editorial the following week in which he said he still didn’t know if an illegal meeting had been held. That further angered the board, which said that he should have checked the facts and had plenty of time to do so.
Complaint: The County Board of Commissioners contended that:
1 The two editorials unfairly said or implied that the January 9 meeting was illegal.
2 The newspaper’s response to the board’s objection to the editorials was inadequate.
Response: The Winona Post responded that the editorials never said anything about a specific meeting, but instead called into question how the county board was doing business. The editor and owner, John Edstrom, said the second editorial, titled “Stoltman [county chairman] has a right to be annoyed,” was a clarification in response to the Board’s complaint that should have satisfied the Board. He said that the editorial’s question, “If this transaction seems crazy to you” was within the Post’s right to ask in an editorial. He said that he did not make a direct accusation of illegality, but instead surmised that any such meeting that would have produced the decision he read about in the Winona Daily News would have been illegal.
Q&A: In News Council questioning, media member Benno Groeneveld asked if the Board had considered sending a letter to the editor to straighten out the confusion. Dave Stoltman, county board chairman, said that they had tried letters to the editor in the past, but they had been discredited on the same page in an editor’s note. So, they did not submit a letter.
Media member Pia Lopez asked if the Post was incorrect to say a decision to buy the school would have been illegal. County Administrator Bob Reinert said, “The insinuation was there. That is what I consider to be the most egregious.” He said the average reader would have made the assumption that some wrongdoing was involved.
Deliberation: Media member Kathleen Stauffer suggested that if there was a complaint, it should have been against the Winona Daily News, which ran the initial incorrect report. Public member Tom Keller said that the editorial’s statement that Stoltman had denied that a decision had been made, and the words, “and well he should,” left the clear implication that he was covering up and lying. “This is a personal liability on the board members,” Keller said.
Media member Jay Furst suggested that Editor Edstrom was trying to say that the meeting would have been illegal, not was illegal, but that he didn’t phrase things as clearly or carefully as he thought he did. Media member Don Shelby said that Edstrom was bound in his follow-up editorial to clear up the misunderstanding, and he didn’t.
Media member Pia Lopez said that she didn’t see any factual errors, and that the editor was within his rights to state his opinion in an editorial. Public member Jon Austin asked if editors have a responsibility to write clearly. “I don’t think I can make that leap,” he said.
Vote:
Complaint 1: upheld (10-9 one abstention)
Complaint 2: upheld (12-7 one abstention)
Tags: Winona Post