Determination 140: Wes Mader, Mike Gundlach, and Jim Ericson v. Prior Lake American
The News Council denied three complaints by Prior Lake’s former mayor and two city council colleagues against the Prior Lake American newspaper.
The complaints grew out of news articles and editorial comments about the former officials, who the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled had violated the state’s open meeting law.
Former Mayor Wes Mader and council colleagues Mike Gundlach and Jim Ericson contended that the newspaper had published false statements that it had never sought to recover legal fees and have fines imposed on them in the lawsuit that reached the supreme court. They also complained that the American showed bias against them by portraying their executive session in 2000 as a “secret meeting” and the current city council’s more recent executive session as a “closed session.”
The News Council voted 11-6 and 13-3 for the newspaper on the two complaints concerning legal fees and fines, and 15-2 for the paper on the complaint about bias.
Publisher Laurie Hartmann wrote in an April 2005 editorial column that the newspaper had never sought fees and fines against the three officials. Mader pointed to official court documents that said the paper did seek such remedies.
The American’s attorney, Mark Anfinson, persuaded the News Council majority that the paper’s request for fees and fines was a technical filing that the newspaper never pursued when the case was resolved. Hartmann said that she could have phrased her column differently, to make it clearer that the paper never filed a motion in the end for fees and fines.
News Council member Pat Berg, a journalism instructor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, asked, “What is more important for a community newspaper: to be precise in what it means by ‘never’ or to hold public officials accountable? The far greater good is that the news media hold officials’ feet to the fire, and if the media make a mistake once in a while, well, democracy is messy.”
As to bias, Mader objected to what he called the newspaper’s treatment of the current city council’s conduct of an executive session, compared with the paper’s treatment of his council’s decision. He said his council voted to close a meeting to consider a threat of litigation against the city. The current council, he said, closed a meeting without taking a vote, facing no threat of litigation. Hartmann said the newspaper has also objected to the recent closed session.
Susan Ihne, editor of the St. Cloud Times, applauded the American’s position: “They pursued an illegal closing the first time [in Mader’s case], and they’re pursuing it the second time. They are protecting the First Amendment.”
Public member Karen Runyon, a forensics specialist, said, “I’m always uncomfortable when I read something that is someone’s personal opinion. The word that comes to my mind is ‘snarky’ [meaning irritable or short-tempered]— I can see why someone would feel it was biased.”
Media member Karen Boros, a journalism teacher at the University of St. Thomas, said that the opinion pages are the right place for writers to sell their views to the reader: “There’s snarkiness on both sides. I have no problem with ‘secret meeting’ being in a signed column.”
Tags: Prior Lake American