Background: In the spring of 1976, Sikorski entered the state senate race in District 51 as DFL candidate. In mid-August, the incumbent Republican senator announced he was retiring, and David Mills entered the race as a Republican candidate. Phil Easton, the newspaper’s publisher, served on Mills’ campaign committee and helped underwrite Mills’ campaign expenses with a $5,000 personal loan.

Following publication of a letter criticizing Sikorski in the spring, the paper refused to print a letter in Sikorski’s support, citing a policy of not publishing letters naming political candidates or officeholders. A second letter was rejected on the same grounds, and an announcement of the letters policy was printed on the letters page.

Several weeks later the paper disregarded its own policy and began printing letters critical of Sikorski. Seven anti-Sikorski letters were printed, including several containing serious allegations regarding his previous activities as campaign manager for a United States representative. The paper printed two letters from McDonough refuting the charges, but no other letters supporting Sikorski. The paper also refused to print an authorized but unsigned letter from a U.S. representative defending Sikorski.

Determination of the Council: Newspapers must impose reasonable controls over letters columns as to the frequency with which some topics are discussed, fair representation of all viewpoints, letter length. But application of the control policy must be fair and consistent, and the policy must be made clear to the public. In the past, the Council has suggested that periodic reiteration of such policies, in print, would serve as the best means of clarifying these policies to the public.

It is acceptable for newspapers to adopt blanket policies prohibiting publication of candidacy support letters during election campaigns as long as the policy is announced to the public, as the newspaper’s policy was. However, if the policy changes, the change should be clearly announced to the public. And if candidacy letters are to be printed as letters to the editor, the editor must be fair to all candidates in publishing such material. Good journalism requires that letters columns be open to views contrary to those of the publisher’s.

The newspaper changed its policy without fairly advising the public and then manipulated its policy, causing the paper to discriminate against Sikorski’s candidacy. Application of the new policy was not fair to him. A far greater number of letters in favor of Sikorski’s opponent or against him as a candidate were printed than vice versa. If candidate letters are printed as letters to the editor, the editor must make every effort to be fair to all candidates in publishing such material. The fact that the publisher helped to underwrite Sikorski’s opponent’s campaign expenses and chose not to publicly report his financial involvement until late in the campaign only serves to reinforce his obligation of fair and equal treatment for his candidate’s opponent on the use of the letter-to-the-editor space.

If a newspaper has an open letter-to-the-editor policy, it should make sure that the letters it publishes represent fairly the diversity of opinion on each issue. Good journalism requires that letter-to-the-editor columns be open to views contrary to those of the publisher. Since letters attacking Sikorski were printed, Sikorski’s staff and supporters should have been allowed to respond to the allegations being made against him.

The complaint against the paper is upheld.

Background: CCA was formed to oppose the building of an abortion clinic by Planned Parenthood of Minnesota (PPM) in a St. Paul neighborhood. To elicit support for its cause, CCA composed an advertisement encouraging people to contact clinic supporters and persuade them to change their minds on the issue. The ad listed the names of officers and sponsors of Planned Parenthood as the names appeared on PPM stationery, along with their home addresses and phone numbers.

The two newspapers refused to publish the ad as submitted: The newspapers objected to printing names, addresses and telephone numbers of those who were not officers of PPM, and asserted that the addresses given for the officers should be the PPM business address unless prior consent was received for using home addresses. The newspapers offered to print the ad with those changes. CCA refused to make the changes and complained that the reasons for the ad’s rejection were arbitrary.

Determination of the Council: A newspaper has the legal right to accept or reject any advertisement, but the paper should establish fair and reasonable standards for advertising and should apply these standards uniformly.

The newspapers did not clearly define their standards regarding the definition of “private persons” whose right to privacy should be protected in advocacy advertisements. The publisher’s claim of right to privacy for the PPM sponsors, as distinguished from the organization’s officers, is rejected: The sponsors’ names appeared with the officers’ names on the organization stationery, and when citizens take a public position in support of an organization functioning in the public arena, they must expect to accept whatever praise or criticism this position brings from members of the public. To this extent, the complaint against the newspapers is upheld. The CCA, however, should not have arbitrarily used the male spouse’s name without discretion. By so doing, they unduly implicated the spouses of women who participated as individuals, and whose husbands were genuinely private persons as regards PPM.

The first complaint against these newspapers is upheld, the second complaint is not upheld. 

Background: Kempe was interviewed by the sole staff member of the weekly newspaper, who subsequently wrote both an editorial and a news story based on the interview. The interview was part of the paper’s effort to interview all candidates running for local office. In running for re-election, Kempe had been speaking out on several controversial issues of importance to the district. The writer focused her interview on Kempe’s knowledge of those issues and on his legislative record.

On August 25, 1976, the writer’s analysis of her interview with Kempe appeared on the paper’s editorial page under the title “Kempe’s Statements Riddled with Lack of Information, Misinformation.” She began the analysis with a disclaimer stating that she had written the piece “not as editor of this paper, but as a citizen of District 53A.” She also wrote a news story on the interview, which appeared in the news section of the paper. Rep. Kempe complained that the writer’s analysis was deliberately designed to malign his character and misrepresent the interview. He had no objections to the news story.

Although the two met to discuss the problem on September 21 and the writer offered to allow Kempe to respond to her analysis by submitting a letter to the editor, Kempe declined to do so.

Determination of the Council: Opinions by an editor or member of the public are not a subject on which the Council will pass judgment. Newspapers must be free to print strong and honest opinion. It is for the reading public to determine whether it is good or bad opinion.

The complaint against the newspaper is not upheld.

August 1976

Background: Over a five-year period McKee submitted 38 letters to the newspaper, of which approximately one-third to one-half (by McKee’s estimate) were printed. According to the newspaper editor, about three letters from McKee were published in 1976. However, four anti-abortion letters of his, submitted from January through July, were not published.

Response of the news organization: The paper chose not to appear at the Council hearing, but the editor in a written statement disputed McKee’s charges, explaining that the letters were rejected because they were not timely and that other similar letters had already covered the subject. The editor noted that other letter writers also have a right to publication. He stated, “We don’t really have to publish any letters at all. We are not bound by any fairness doctrine, no law.”

Determination of the Council: There was no evidence to support the charge that the paper showed continuing bias against certain viewpoints in the letters chosen for publication. McKee was not denied fair access, considering the number of his letters published by the paper.

The complaint against the newspaper is not upheld.

Background: Elwood, et al., objected to two columns by the same well-known entertainment columnist for the paper. The first column, entitled “Homos on El Soapos” ran on December 22, 1975, and described the National Broadcasting Company’s new fair treatment programming policy toward gay persons. Elwood complained that it contained not only factual errors but also a deliberate imputation that all homosexuals commit crime. As evidence, the complainants quoted the writer’s comments on NBC’s new policy:

“The lavender ladies laid into the network the other day and must have shook em up but def. Because after the pow wow, NBC indicated it would soon be doing a documentary on homos – and you can bet it’s not going to deal with recruiting in men’s rooms or that type of faggot who’s such a problem to the New York City police. What are they called? ‘Hawks’ or ‘eagles’ or something like that, and prey on young boys in the Times Square area.”

Elwood pointed out that public solicitation of sexual acts and seduction of minors are criminal acts, but that there is no reason to assert that all homosexuals commit such acts or that a greater percent of homosexuals break the law than other groups in society. They also complained that the first column contained derogatory language and an offensive tone defamatory to gay persons.

The complainants asked for either a retraction or allocation of the columnist’s normal column space for a “guest column.” At a meeting with the newspaper editor, he said he felt some of the language was in poor taste, but he rejected the request for a retraction on the grounds that it would exacerbate the problem by bringing the whole matter up again. He said a guest column was unrealistic.

A second column by the same writer appeared on January 16, 1976, entitled “NBC’s homosexual policy.” It was written in a noticeably different tone and corrected the factual errors of the first column. The columnist admitted he had not verified the information received from his sources for the first column.

Elwood complained that the second column did not apologize directly for the language used in the earlier story, and they objected to the use of the term “homosexual” in both columns, saying it was unacceptable to gay people (which they considered a preferable term).

When the complainants met again with representatives of the paper to voice their objections to the offensive language, innuendo and implications that were not corrected in the second column, the newspaper decided to adopt a new policy on the use of labels and descriptive terms identifying gay persons.

Determination of the Council: Some of the language in the first column was in poor taste; however, taste is a matter of opinion, and opinion expressed in an entertainment column is editorial. The public must be the judge of the reasonableness, validity or tastefulness of editorial opinion.

The newspaper responded quickly and positively by correcting the errors with a second column and by adopting a new policy to prevent the recurrence of potentially offensive reference to minority groups such as gay persons. In light of the new policy, the complainants’ request for either a retraction or “guest column” is unnecessary and unreasonable.

Elwood took the position that a minority group in society has the sole and inalienable right to determine for itself the term or descriptive phrase by which it will be identified in public media presentations; in particular, they reject the term “homosexual” as unacceptable to gay people. We think otherwise. Journalists should respect the rights and dignity of all minority groups, but the Council rejects the right of any group to control the media’s right to present accurate and understandable news reports. If groups are commonly known and identified in the public’s mind by certain generic expressions, the media may use those terms even though that use may not be preferred by the minority group. Clearly if the minority is successful in getting public acceptance and understanding of a new label or term, then the media will properly and willingly use that term since it has become the commonly understood reference to that group.

The complaint against the newspaper is not upheld.

Concurring Opinion: Spielman Columns are not just expressions of opinion comparable to editorials, but are a combination of news reports and commentary. They are a form of “insider’s reports” mixing news with opinions. Since the writers often pose as experts in their fields, the necessity for accuracy of the information contained in such columns requires the same diligence as in a straight news story.

The first column was more than an expression of opinion in which language was used derogatory to “gays.” It was a report on the supposed policy of NBC on the portrayal of homosexuality, and it reported on what supposedly took place at a meeting of representatives of “gay” organizations with network officials. While the Council majority may well point out that the Council does not determine what is “good” or “bad” opinion, or even “good” or “bad” taste, the Minnesota Press Council was established to determine what is good and bad journalism.

In light of the information contained in the second column, it is evident that the reports of NBC policy and what happened at the meeting with NBC officials, as reported in the first column, were grossly inaccurate and false. Further, from the derogatory language used, it appears that the personal prejudices of the writer blinded him to his duty to check his facts before writing the first column. The statement on NBC policy obtained from the network vice president and facts concerning the meeting with the “gay” organizations could have been obtained before the December 22 column was written, as well as later. This was bad journalism, and the fact that it was so is tacitly admitted by the paper.

If this is where the matter had ended, the columnist and the paper would be subject to censure by this press council. But the matter did not end there.

In the January 16 column, the writer made full correction of all errors of fact and reported in great detail the story of NBC’s policy and what had actually happened at the meeting. This was done in the same place, with equal prominence, and with an even greater amount of space than the offending column. The editor’s memorandum further lessened the likelihood that overt prejudice will blind the paper’s personnel to their obligations in the future. In addition to this, the newspaper offered space in its letters-to-the-editor column to the complainants, which was declined by them.

The corrections in the second column and the new policy adopted by the newspaper constituted adequate remedy for the earlier errors. The request for further retraction is excessive; the demand for a “guest column” is unreasonable.

Concurring Opinion: Hetland – A signed column is different from an editorial opinion. It does contain elements of news reporting. However, since the signed column is primarily intended to express the writer’s opinions, conclusions and even prejudices and is so understood and accepted by the reading public, it is fair to impose upon that opinion writer the same freedom to express opinion and the same obligation of factual accuracy as is imposed upon the editor in his opinion writing.