Credibility and the Times' ethics guidelines

Last week I noted the controversy brewing at the LA Times over the behavior of columnist and erstwhile blogger Michael Hiltzik. Early in the week, Hiltzik's blog was suspended. Yesterday, Hiltzik himself was suspended from the paper for a time without pay. Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Doug Frantz also explained their decision to strip Hiltzik's Business column as well in a staff memo:

Killing a column is a serious step. We don't take it lightly. Mike did not commit any ethical violations in his newspaper column, and an internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting in his postings in his blog or on the Web.

But employing pseudonyms constitutes deception and violates a central tenet of our ethics guidelines: We do not misrepresent ourselves and we do not conceal our affiliation with The Times. This rule applies equally to the newspaper and the Web world. We expect Times employees to behave with integrity and follow our guidelines in all journalistic forums.

A columnist has a special place within The Times. Editors, colleagues and, most of all, readers must trust the integrity and judgment of a columnist because of the freedom that comes with the job. Mike often used his column to pillory business leaders for duplicity or violating the trust of employees, shareholders or the public and we are no longer comfortable granting him that special place within our newspaper.

I found the action appropriate within the boundaries of the Times' ethics guidelines. The action is punitive and most importantly, narrow. It is in relation to this incident only. For better or worse, the Times as an employer can not take broad action against an employee that isn't warranted by that employee's actions.

Baquet and Frantz, in my opinion, took the correct action in response to Hiltzik's behavior.

Hugh Hewitt has been one of Hiltzik's foremost critics, in general and in this instance specifically. Hugh is not buying the suspension:

Michael Hiltzik is just one of hundreds of examples of ideologically blinkered agenda journalists at the Times. He just got caught.

The Times concludes "an internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting."

Yeah. Right. Very believable. Hiltzik may become an invisible presence at the paper, the Pulitzer Prize winner at the copy desk, or he may quit, but he'll no doubt haunt message boards.

But the culture at the Times that produced him quite obviously stays the same.

He presses his point further by taking it to Times' management: If you really want to know if a disgraced reporter/writer has been accurate in his reporting, ask the subjects of that reporting. The Times didn't, because the Times wasn't. Not surprisingly, the paper doesn't really want a whole lot of attention paid to what Hiltzik has been writing under its banner. Then the question wouldn't be how he could be so dumb as to use pseudonyms. Then the question would be how could the paper's leadership not have notice how far over the left edge the guy had gone. The answer to the second question is that the editors didn't find anything particulars unusual about Hiltzik's many slanders. They agreed with him. They still do.

I've never bought 100% into the concept of "media bias" as others have. Now that I see the inside of a newsroom 5 days a week, I'm even less inclined to buy the argument of institutional bias. Newsrooms are a collection of individuals.

Many may indeed have political and social bias' (I have suspicions about members of our editorial staff), but until and unless that finds its way into the writing there is nothing untoward about it. When it does, are we right to brand the institution or the individual?

Perhaps it's because my Times is a small-town publication with a relatively small number of staff writers, I don't see the same phenomenon at work. The entirety of our national and state coverage comes off the wire. No staffer has the opportunity, aside from the editorial board, to comment on matters truly political.

Then again, northern Santa Barbara County is much more conservative than the South Coast. Perhaps I don't see bias because the reporting and commentary is writing for an audience that more closely mirrors my own positions.

Something to think about.