Complainants were two parents of special education children - Ruth Gregory, an advocate of special education families and John Guthmann, an attorney - and Robert J. Brick, executive director of ARC Minnesota. Representing the Star Tribune were Tim McGuire, editor, and staff reporters Rob Hotakainen and Mary Jane Smetanka, two of the series’ primary authors. Also attending to answer financial questions was Robert Fischer, a special education statistician in the Minnesota Department of Education.

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Schwietz complained that the station acted unethically by violating a promise to her about the nature of a piece they produced about her for which she granted an interview.

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A 17-year-old incest victim attended the hearing to press her complaint. Accompanying her were her mother and her therapist, Sandy Garry of Winona. Representing the Wabasha County Herald were Michael Smith, editor, and Gary Stumpf, publisher.

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The Department objected to two articles in the Star Tribune on July 21, 1994. The Department made three claims of unfairness: first, that the articles distorted the reality and hurt the image of the Department by focusing on one course, which the Department said was unrepresentative of its offerings. Second, that the paper committed an ethical violation by using an undercover reporter in a classroom and by mischaracterizing the story it was working on when it approached the acting department chair, Jacqueline Zita, for comment; and finally that the main article relied uncritically upon the writings of Christina Sommers, whose work has been funded by organizations the Department characterized as “right wing.”

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Crow Wing County Commissioner Paul Thiede, a former newspaper editor himself, complains that the editor of the Brainerd Daily Dispatch acted unethically when he sent a private letter on newspaper stationery to a select group of people (50 members of a Blandin Foundation leadership program) to solicit letters to the editor that were favorable to the editor’s position in the midst of a bitter debate over the county board’s decision to abolish the county welfare board.

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Ellis Olkon is the lawyer-husband of Nancy Olkon, a candidate for Hennepin County Board of Commissioners in 1994. The Twin Cities Reader published a story in August 1994, just before the primary election, that characterized her tenure on the Board in the late ’70s as tumultuous and brought up her husband’s conviction (now expunged) and temporary disbarment. Mr. Olkon complains that the Reader was unfair in relying upon sources hostile to him and by not contacting him for comment on the story, although at least half of the story was about him and not about his wife, the candidate. Additionally, he claims the Reader defamed him by reporting that federal officials had accused him of having a financial interest in the Bunny Hutch, “a notorious St. Louis Park whorehouse,” and reporting that he “had” a witness testify to something in a court case, unfairly implying that he had induced false testimony. He says he was not charged with any crimes related to the Bunny Hutch. Finally Olkon felt the Reader story inaccurately characterized the results of a lawsuit the Olkons filed against Mark Andrew, another county commissioner, alleging unfair campaign practices.

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