Background: On June 13, 1977, the station reported on its 6 and 10 p.m. news broadcasts that three Iron Range commissioners “allegedly secretly plotted” to fire the St. Louis County planning and zoning director. Dicklich, one of the commissioners charged in the report, complained that the reports were totally false and were based on hearsay rather than fact.

According to the news director, Dick Gottschald, the report was based on information from the planning and zoning director himself, from another KBJR news director whose brother was one of the commissioners reported about, and from some anonymous sources. None of the commissioners was contacted to refute or verify the story. Gottschald admitted that two unnamed sources were uncertain about particulars of the secret meeting. His most important source, he said, was the other news director who, Gottschald said, got his information from his brother. That news director told the Council his information came not from his brother but from another source who claimed to have discussed the matter with other commissioners. The planning and zoning director said he did not remember discussing the alleged secret meeting with Gottschald, and that his knowledge of the meeting was based on information from staff members who had heard it from other staff members.

Gottschald said the story was intentionally vague, that the very nature of a secret meeting makes it difficult to find out what happened, and that the broadcast was a “political speculation” story.

Determination of the Council: (This was the Council’s first determination against a broadcast station, as it expanded its purview in January 1977 to include complaints against the broadcast media.)

The TV station failed to trace rumored allegations, including several made anonymously, to a hard factual origin, and failed to acknowledge contradictions in the accounts of the rumored meeting offered by at least two of its sources. As in Lindstrom against the St. Paul Union Advocate, “the time at which a reporter is satisfied with the truth and accuracy of his story is a matter solely for decision by the reporter and his newspaper (or broadcast station). Once printed (or broadcast), however, the accuracy of the news story must be justified by facts if a proper challenge is raised. If the names of the informants are not disclosed, other facts relied upon by the newspaper (or broadcast station) must be produced or the Council must conclude that no substantiating facts exist, or that the newspaper (or broadcast station), for reasons best known unto it, prefers not to present its substantiating facts and is content to be judged on the evidence presented by others.”

The Council recognizes that in the gathering of the news there are circumstances in which sources cannot be named. However, to the degree specific sources are named, the report gains credibility; to the degree sources are not named, the report tends to lose credibility. And as in Lindstrom, “if the (news organization) wished to protect its sources, then fairness and candor would indicate that the (news organization) should have told its readers that its informants did not wish to be identified. This would have alerted readers of the possible inaccuracy of the report.”

In the June 13 reports, the station failed not only to attribute the story in any way, but also to broadcast a response from those charged with improper actions. The Council further believes that the opportunity to reply offered by the station was not an adequate remedy for the unsubstantiated news reports.

The station’s reports of an alleged secret plot to fire a county official were so unsubstantiated as to constitute a significant departure from the standards of responsible journalism.

The complaint against the television station is upheld.

Background: Locey charged that the paper’s coverage, including inaccuracies and omissions as well as poorly timed and inadequately presented corrections, reflected an editorial policy deliberately designed to support the paper’s corporate goals. (As a litter-producing organization, the paper would be taxed under the litter tax provision.)

The complaint focused specifically on: a misleading headline and lead paragraph on a Minnesota Poll story that inaccurately indicates most Minnesotans favored a mandatory deposit on beverage containers; inaccuracies and omissions in an editorial supporting the deposit, including failure to mention the paper’s financial stake in the outcome of the controversy; inaccuracies in news story and headline; and inadequacy of corrections printed. Some corrections did not appear until several weeks after the error; some corrections were made, not directly through a specific announcement of error, but obliquely through different information in an editorial.

Locey complained in general about what he considered the ill-defined role of the news media as advocates of legislation, and recommended such regulatory action as registration of editorialists as lobbyists, to curb the advocacy power of the media.

Determination of the Council: Evidence verified the factual errors alleged by Locey; the newspaper in part admitted its errors. Locey’s complaint that the inaccuracies and errors of omission were inadequately corrected with respect to timing and presentation is accepted. The correction and clarification procedures in practice by the paper at that time were tardy, nonsystematic and generally inadequate.To this extent, the complaint against the newspaper is upheld.

There was no evidence to support Locey’s complaint that editorial pressure or corporate conflicts of interest affected the integrity of the paper’s coverage of the bills in question. The Council rejects any form of government regulation of the press, and defends a newspaper’s constitutional right and responsibility to impartially and accurately report the news, and without restraint to state its opinions in editorials. The Council strongly opposes Locey’s proposal that editorial writers be required to register as lobbyists.

Therefore, the complaint is accepted in part, rejected in part.

Background: The lawsuit was a 1958 alienation of affection and slander suit involving Coya Knutson, who happened to be one of the other candidates opposing Kjeldahl in the 1977 congressional race. The suit was filed against Kjeldahl by the husband of Knutson, for whom Kjeldahl had served as administrative assistant when she served in Congress. Her husband withdrew the suit three weeks after he had filed it, with his wife admitting in sworn testimony that there was no basis for the charges. Kjeldahl said at the Council hearing that he had never been given the opportunity at that time to refute the allegations in legal proceedings.

Several weeks before the 1977 primary, a story in the Star included a one sentence mention of the 1958 suit against Kjeldahl and the hasty withdrawal of the charges. A story in the Tribune included mention of the suit but not its outcome.

Kjeldahl complained that reference to the suit should not have been made, and that the references may have been made simply to embarrass him. He further claimed that the brevity of the references, without any mention of the circumstances surrounding Knutson’s later testimony, was harmful to his campaign. He unsuccessfully sought a retraction of the Tribune article.

Determination of the Council: Candidates for public office are necessarily public figures and should expect more exposure of the details of their lives through scrutiny by the media. But responsible journalism mandates that in the process of informing the public about someone seeking public office, news reports should be fair, balanced, and accurate. In reviewing a lawsuit filed years earlier, it would seem fair that not only the filing but also the outcome be part of a balanced news account, even if the reference is confined to one sentence.

The Star article was well within the bounds of accepted journalistic standards of covering public figures. The Tribune article would have been improved by mention of the outcome of the lawsuit; following the omission, the clarification published Feb. 29 was the appropriate remedy.

The complaints against the two newspapers are not upheld.

Aspects of the complaint concerning the letters column included allegations that the newspaper altered a letter to significantly change the meaning and give respectability to the writer, refused to print letters disagreeing with the editor’s viewpoint, published an overabundance of anti-fluoride letters and a minimum of pro-fluoride letters, and published letters that violated the paper’s stated policy. Further aspects of the complaint charged the newspaper with printing editorials that admitted the paper’s anti-fluoride position on the issue, publishing inaccurate information in editorials, allowing editorial bias to determine placement of news articles on the issue, and failing to maintain the watchdog role of the press.

Background: The period encompassed by the Brainerd fluoridation controversy ranged from 1961, when the city held its first referendum on the issue, to the time of the complaint (1977). In 1967, the Minnesota Legislature passed, and the governor signed, legislation requiring the State Board of Health to set fluoridation levels for all municipal water supplies in the state. At the time the complaint was filed, Brainerd was the only major community in the state that had refused to comply; in 1961 and in 1974, Brainerd voters had rejected fluoridation, state law notwithstanding.

Much of the complaint centered on the paper’s coverage of the 1974 referendum and on a series of legal proceedings that had fueled the controversy in subsequent years. The letters-to-the-editor column became an important and influential forum for debate between a small group of local dentists and others who favored fluoridation, and community residents opposed to fluoridation. The paper did not establish or publish consistent policy guidelines for its letters column; it did, however, print occasional restrictions, presumably in response to immediate circumstances. As the fluoridation issue became more heated, for example, the paper announced that it would restrict letters from outside the circulation area, unsigned letters, letters not addressed specifically to the letters column, letters containing personal attacks or repetitious information, and lengthy letters. In addition, the paper reserved the right to correct gross spelling and grammatical errors without altering content. Never during the fluoridation controversy did the paper openly take sides editorially. It refused to argue the medical evidence, and said that it considered the central issue not fluoridation, but home rule (the right of the community to counter state or federal law by means of a referendum on an issue of local significance).

Determination of the Council: Some of the policies regulating letters printed in the paper’s letters column were unduly restrictive (prohibiting letters from non-residents of the newspaper’s circulation area and letters not specifically addressed to the letters column), giving credence to the charge that the paper refused to print letters disagreeing with the editor’s viewpoint. These restrictions are unwarranted in that they accomplish no objective that would not be served by the exercise of editorial judgment on each letter intended for publication. The implication is inescapable that casual readers of the paper in the Brainerd area, as well as all of those who live elsewhere, were effectively foreclosed from the letters column, whatever the nature of their ties to the community, their interest in its public life or their capacity to contribute to the resolution of public issues.

Evidence indicates that the paper clearly violated its own policy of not allowing personal attacks in letters when it published a letter containing attacks on another dentist. The unduly restrictive nature of the letters policy was demonstrated when the newspaper initially refused to print the dentist’s rebuttal because he lived outside the paper’s circulation area. The paper unfairly altered one letter (changing the word “chloride” to “fluoride”), giving increased credence to the letter writer. This action clearly overstepped the newspaper’s policy of correcting only gross errors in grammar and spelling without changing the writer’s intended meaning.

Further, the newspaper fell short of desired journalistic standards in its overall news coverage of the fluoridation controversy by adopting a passive role. It is apparent from the evidence that the dispute was characterized by extreme statements against fluoridation, by allegedly scientific attempts to link fluoride with cancer, and by repeated allusions and direct suggestions that opponents may have resorted to violence if fluoridation would take place in Brainerd. Faced with such an extraordinary challenge, a newspaper has an obligation to assemble the most authoritative evidence available to attempt to focus the complex public debate and to take steps to balance provocative comment with objective information.

The complaint against the newspaper is upheld.

Uppgaard and Echternacht provided insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the paper published factual inaccuracies in editorials or allowed editorial bias to determine news placement. Following its own guidelines, the Council did not judge the paper’s editorial opinion.