Determination 144: Erik Hjelle et al. (Maplewood City Council) v. KSTP-TV
A complaint from three Maplewood city council members that a KSTP-TV news story in July inaccurately reported that the council had stalled progress on an area redevelopment plan was narrowly upheld today by the Minnesota News Council. The vote was 6 to 4.
The news story focused on an area of Maplewood known as Gladstone, where existing businesses and housing have been described as tired and deteriorating. Proponents of change have differed on how many housing units should be built, and that has slowed progress.
The outcome reflected the difficulty news council members had in sorting through the views of the complainants and of their critics on facts about the redevelopment project. Critics say the city council has done nothing since receiving a proposal from a task force last fall. The complainants pointed to several official council and city staff actions to show that there has been progress.
News Council members generally agreed that both the complainants and the station deserved some criticism. Members learned that the KSTP story was produced live on the night of a special city council meeting to consider a felony allegation against the city manager. When the charge proved unfounded, the reporter decided to do a story on bitterness over the redevelopment project, even though it was not discussed that night, and she interviewed a critic of the council but no council members.
News Council members also learned that the main complainant, Council Member Erik Hjelle, called KSTP the day after the story appeared to object to its conclusions. He acknowledged that the station offered to do a follow-up story and asked him to grant an interview, but he declined, saying he wanted a story that was more comprehensive than an interview with him would be.
Several News Council members asked Hjelle how he could know how the station would use an interview with him in a story, and they observed that he had been mistaken to refuse the offer.
But most of the News Council’s concern focused on the news story, which members said combined unrelated matters to craft a tale about conflict without making any of the threads clear. News Council member Karen Boros, a former WCCO-TV and CBS News reporter now teaching journalism at the University of St. Thomas, said, “If one of my students had done this story we’d be having a serious talk right now.”
News Council members expressed appreciation to KSTP for its co-operation in the proceeding. As has been KSTP’s practice, no station representative attended, but the news department did prepare a detailed response to the complaint and sent it to the News Council, something it had not done in the 36-year history of the News Council.
Tags: KSTP-TV