Every profession has its unwritten rules, among those in journalism, and/or the “news business” if you will, is the rule that says the sales end of the operation, be it a newspaper or TV station, never sticks its nose into the reporting end. (Actually, that may be written in some places.)
Another is that as a news person whose job involves asking people uncomfortable questions, when on the rare occasion you yourself are asked a question by some other journalist you deal with it yourself. It’s part professional courtesy and part common sense. Request anonymity if you must. Go off-record. Say, “no comment”. But do it yourself. What you don’t do is use the always suspicion-arousing corporate dodge of handing it off to a gate-keeping minion in the PR department.
It appears that KMSP/Fox 9 News’ news director, Bill Dallman, has blown by these quaint conventions and embraced a new journalistic orthodoxy.
The story begins a little over a week ago when veteran reporter Tom Lyden volunteered to run down a tip about someone who bought a car from a small Richfield car lot, Car Hop, only to be pulled over by the cops a few days later for driving a stolen vehicle. As Lyden checked it out it became clear that the problem rested with a paperwork screw up at the state level and the car dealer was blameless. But it was still an interesting little story, so Lyden assembled the piece for a report on that night’s Fox 9 news hour.
So far, so mundane. But then, about 90 minutes before the piece was to air, Lyden got a call from his boss, Mr. Dallman, asking whether there was any way to keep Car Hop’s name out of the story. Car Hop it turns out is a KMSP advertiser. Never mind that Lyden’s reporting would show Car Hop to be blameless in the episode.
Lyden resisted. The piece ran. Car Hop was mentioned. And the next morning Dallman addressed his staff, telling them that from now on he wanted a heads up any time one of their stories involved a station advertiser. According to those there that morning Dallman also mentioned that if the station lost advertising as a result of a story his job could be on the line. The clear inference to that order being that someone ELSE’S job would be on the line before his.
Needless to say, that little speech became a “talker” around KMSP. Especially since, as it became clear, the advertiser in question … never even called to express concern with the story. Dallman apparently was free-lancing advertiser protection … from his own reporters.
Now THAT is what I call servicing an account.
After calling Car Hop, where the manager insisted he never talked to anyone from KMSP other than Lyden, and never registered any complaint, I left a message for Dallman. An hour or two later I got a call from a young woman in KMSP’s “media department”. (Wait, isn’t the whole building a “media department”?)
She asked what my interest was in talking to Mr. Dallman? My “interest” I explained, was in asking Mr. Dallman a few questions about the episode. She then explained that I would have to ask those questions of her instead, or at least first. At that point I realized the story had just fattened up a bit. A news director for a TV newsroom full of news reporters was having a PR department throw up flack? (Did I mention he is in the “news” business?) I told the young lady that although I have never met or previously spoken with Mr. Dallman, (he took the job a little over a year ago), I was assuming he was a big boy and could probably answer questions for himself, without the PR department’s protection/interference.
She reiterated that I would have to ask the questions of her first, because, “That’s the way we do things.”
I left it at Dallman could call me if he wanted to talk, otherwise I’d put him down as a “no comment”.
Dallman didn’t call back.
The young woman expressed some confusion over why anyone would have any interest in a story like this? To which I explained that if nothing else the detail of an automobile advertiser’s involvement in sales-to-news management carries unique resonance in the Twin Cities. She claimed not to understand what I was talking about.
Along with unwritten rules, there is the open secret that no newsroom, print or electronic ever treads on the automobile industry. Not on models, manufacturers or dealers. Not unless the story has grown so huge it has created a national-sized buffer, like the tires exploding on Ford Explorers a few years back. Never mind that automobiles are the second-largest purchase the average news-consuming family ever makes. The fact that local car dealers are so absolutely vital to every newspaper and TV station’s bottom line means you almost never read or see investigative stories about the industry, and the “news” holes in the car sections are filled only with lavish praise for the fabulous redesign of the latest hot model.
WCCO-TV, the last news operation that (very) briefly employed a spokeswoman for its news director, remembers both the infamous Silvia Gambardella consumer report of the early ’90s where she almost off-handedly reported the savings possible by buying used rental cars, a comment that resulted in a firestorm of protest from local dealers that soon found her gone from ‘CCO, and more recently, car advertisers pulling a rumored $1 million in ads over a Don Shelby, “In the Know” comment.
Point being, car advertisers know they have weight to throw around, and they throw it. But … back to KMSP … tiny Car Hop isn’t exactly Denny Hecker, and … they didn’t even complain! They thought Lyden’s piece was fair.
The stonewall thrown up by KMSP’s “media department” prompted a rare moment of investigative journalism on my part, which turned up this little gem, from very early in Dallman’s term at KMSP. By 2006 I think everyone in the country knew you don’t run Video News Releases (VNRs) — essentially feature length commercials produced by specific businesses, in this case a little organization known as General Motors — without at least disclosing the source. But, what do I know? I’m old school about this stuff.
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