Poynter Ethics Journal

It's been a rough week in the Salt Lake Tribune newsroom. First the editor, Jay Shelledy, apologized to readers. Then he fired two reporters. Thursday afternoon, he resigned. To top it all off, the National Enquirer is demanding a retraction from the Utah newspaper.

When things go sour in newsrooms, events take on a life of their own.

Here's what happened. Last July, the National Enquirer published a story about the family of Elizabeth Smart, alleging sexual misconduct by several family members. The story quoted anonymous sources. The Smart family demanded an apology and the Enquirer acquiesced. Part of that deal required the Enquirer to reveal the sources of their information. The Enquirer named Salt Lake Tribune reporters Michael Vigh and Kevin Cantera.

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With the news about to go public, Vigh and Cantera approached their boss, Shelledy, last week and told him they had worked with the National Enquirer, passing along rumors that had surfaced during their work on the Smart case. In exchange, they told Shelledy the Enquirer paid them each $10,000. Shelledy in turn apologized to readers, but defended the reporters as merely naïve, not unethical.

"Strictly speaking, talking to the National Enquirer or others of like ilk, in and of itself, is neither illegal or unethical," he wrote. "Rather, it is akin to drinking water out of a toilet bowl -- dumb, distasteful and, when observed, embarrassing." Although he said they were compensated for the work, he did not mention the exact amount they were paid.

Alarmed at their editor's nonchalance, many newsroom staffers signed an open letter to their readers published in Tuesday's newspaper expressing disappointment in their colleagues and promising a higher level of journalistic conduct.

The National Enquirer then let the Tribune's competition, the Deseret News, listen to tapes that revealed the reporters were direct sources of information rather than mere conduits as they originally confessed to Shelledy. Upon hearing about the tapes, Shelledy fired Cantera and Vigh.

It was the money that seduced them, Cantera said during a phone interview on Thursday. Originally, the Enquirer offered the pair $100,000 to go on the record with certain allegations. When the reporters couldn't do that, they were offered $20,000 to "corroborate" information they were told had been confirmed by police sources.

He thought they were safe, he said, because initially they were careful to couch their information as unconfirmed. But after several hours of conversation with a reporter from the Enquirer, Cantera said he stopped making the distinction between fact and rumor.

"It started as just a bull session," Cantera said. "We thought we were doing something on our own time. In retrospect, it was the wrong decision." Vigh's phone number is not listed. He did not respond to a message passed along by Cantera.

Credibility is the biggest casualty for the Salt Lake Tribune.Credibility is the biggest casualty for the Salt Lake Tribune. Most people who read newspapers have a hard time articulating the difference between their local publication and the supermarket tabloids. They might talk about content or tone or invasion of privacy. But few are conversant in the standards of journalism. Now, readers in Salt Lake have even more reason to be ambivalent and confused.

Shelledy himself is struggling to articulate exactly what went wrong.

"This issue is common sense as much as anything," he told me during a phone conversation Wednesday. "It's incredulous to me that anybody would work for the National Enquirer."

In a statement issued Thursday, he said: "It has become clear to me and the publisher that it will take a new editor to bring an end to the newsroom contention over what will forever be known as the Enquirer affair."

The Salt Lake Tribune policy requires that reporters wanting to work for other publications get permission from the editor. Last summer, when the Smart story was hot, Cantera and Vigh fielded requests from many news outlets. They appeared on national television. Shelledy said it went to their heads.

In the same breath, Shelledy points out that it's one thing to freelance to National Public Radio, another to the National Enquirer. "Early on we need to decide what our criteria is going to be and how we are going to make good choices in this business," he said.

Cantera said Shelledy had given him carte blanche to talk to other media outlets. "We never had to get specific permission," he said.

Shelledy says the paper's written policy on freelancing was in effect. It requires employees do the work on their own time and not participate in a story that would scoop the Tribune.

"One of the five criteria is permission from the editor. You live by my standards," Shelledy said.

How would he describe those standards, I asked.

"Aren't professional standards somewhat subjective?" "If you've got to ask, I can't explain," he replied, quoting an old Louis Armstrong adage. "It's too subjective. Aren't professional standards somewhat subjective?"

Cantera and Vigh were at the top of their game, according to the editor who admired their tenacity.

"I look for aggressive reporters. They don't have to be cocky. But that sometimes goes with it," he said. "They went down the firepole any time you asked them. Their copy was accurate. Good writers."

Cantera, 34, had been at the paper three years; Vigh, 32, for five.

"Maybe because they were young reporters we should have watched that a little more carefully," Shelledy said. "But in this business, you don't have time to do anything when those big stories are breaking."

Sure we do.

We can improve the discourse about journalism values on two levels. On the first level, we can talk about ethical concerns every day, in every meeting, on every story. This is how editors coach their reporters. This is how senior reporters model decision-making for younger reporters.

...those values become perverted when the seduction of the story or the lure of money become the end goalJournalists often come into this business eager to impress their editors, break stories, and win prizes. Those values are partially rooted in principles of accuracy, fairness, and independence. But those values become perverted when the seduction of the story or the lure of money become the end goal instead of the means by which we tell the truth and hold the powerful accountable.

If we keep the values of journalism near the surface, if we talk about why we write the stories we write and choose the photos we publish, we create a culture where those values are apparent and agreed upon. It's possible that Cantera and Vigh underestimated the fragility of their own credibility and their newsroom's credibility. If that's the case, only the Tribune newsroom can answer why.

"In three years at the Tribune I felt I had good credibility," Cantera said. "And I thought I'd take a hit [if the association became public]. We were assured it would never get it out."

On a second and more formal level, editors, managing editors, and other top leaders can steer the conversation about values and ethics. Just as reporters take note when the boss praises their kick-ass investigative skills in the morning meeting, the entire staff will take it to heart if the top brass talks about values underpinning good journalism and how those values apply to the stories of the day.

Of course, reporters have notoriously acute B.S. detectors. Senior managers often fear the eye-rolling that happens when the conversation steers toward guiding principles. That fear is valid when their words don't match their practice.

Moral philosopher Sissela Bok told a group of publishers and editors who gathered at Poynter earlier this year to beware of "fake ethics talk." Enron, she said, "had a resplendent code of ethics." It's not enough. Instead, she said, senior managers need to be deliberate in creating the kind of environment where ethics goes hand-in-hand with scooping the competition, writing a good lede, or telling a great story.

Before quitting on Thursday, Shelledy said he thought he still had that kind of newsroom.  "We'll rebuild," he said Wednesday. "If two people can take down the combined credibility of 148 others, then we didn't have much to begin with."

Note: The Tribune has hired Poynter Ethics Group Leader Bob Steele to do a series of workshops on journalism ethics.