ethics

Scary! When a judge rules against a newspaper’s right to print an opinion story!

“Judge Orders Mississippi Newspaper to Remove Editorial, Alarming Press Advocates

The owner of The Clarksdale Press Register said he planned to challenge a judge’s order against an editorial that criticized city officials.

A brick building with a black-and-white sign saying “Press Register.”
“I’ve been in this business for five decades and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,”
Wyatt Emmerich, the president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns The Press Register in Clarksdale, Miss., said of a judge’s order.

By Michael Levenson {{<— New York Times reporter}}

Feb. 19, 2025 5:54 p.m. ET

A Mississippi judge on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order requested by the city of Clarksdale requiring a local newspaper to remove a critical editorial from its website, a move that alarmed press advocates.

By Wednesday, the newspaper, The Clarksdale Press Register, had removed the editorial from its website. But Wyatt Emmerich, the president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns The Press Register, said he planned to challenge the judge’s order at a hearing next week.

“I’ve been in this business for five decades and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Mr. Emmerich said in an interview, adding that the judge had targeted “an editorial that is pretty plain vanilla, criticizing the City Council for not sending out the approporate notices.”

The Press Register, which dates to 1865 and serves about 7,750 readers, published the editorial on its website on Feb. 8 under the headline, “Secrecy, deception erode public trust.”

The editorial criticized officials in Clarksdale, a city of about 14,000 residents near the Arkansas border, for what it said was their failure to notify the news media before they held a special meeting on Feb. 4, where they approved a resolution asking the Mississippi Legislature to impose a 2 percent tax on alcohol, marijuana and tobacco.

“This newspaper was never notified,” the editorial read. “We know of no other media organization that was notified.”

The editorial also questioned city officials’ interest in the resolution.

“Have commissioners or the mayor gotten kickback from the community?” it asked. “Until Tuesday we had not heard of any. Maybe they just want a few nights in Jackson to lobby for this idea — at public expense.”

Clarksdale’s Board of Mayor and Commissioners voted on Feb. 13 to sue the newspaper for libel, saying the city clerk had created a public notice for the Feb. 4 board meeting but forgot to email a copy of it to Floyd Ingram, the editor and publisher of The Press Register, as she usually does.

After the meeting, Mr. Ingram went to the clerk’s office, where the clerk apologized for not sending him the notice and gave him a copy of it and the resolution that had been approved, city officials said.

In their lawsuit against The Press Register, city officials said that efforts by the mayor, Chuck Espy, to lobby for the tax proposal in Jackson, the state capital, had been “chilled and hindered due to the libelous assertions and statements by Mr. Ingram.”

On Tuesday, Judge Crystal Wise Martin of the Chancery Court of Hinds County, Miss., granted the city’s request for a temporary restraining order and told the newspaper to remove the editorial from its “online portals” and to make it inaccessible to the public.

“The injury in this case is defamation against public figures through actual malice in reckless disregard of the truth and interferes with their legitimate function to advocate for legislation they believe would help their municipality during this current legislative cycle,” Judge Martin wrote.

Mr. Ingram referred questions on Wednesday to Emmerich Newspapers. Mr. Emmerich said the editorial was clearly free speech protected by the Constitution.

“I don’t know how they can argue that a critical editorial is interfering with their businesses in a country that has a First Amendment that protects our right to criticize the government,” he said. “That’s the very idea of what an editorial in a newspaper does.”

The city’s lawsuit was part of what Mr. Emmerich described as an ongoing feud between The Press Register and Mr. Espy. He said that the newspaper had irked the mayor and other officials by reporting on their increased compensation and other issues and that “they’ve been at us ever since.”

Mr. Espy, a Democrat, said that the increased compensation had “nothing do with” the city’s lawsuit against the newspaper and “its malicious lies.” He said the city had threatened to sue the newspaper in the past, forcing it to retract an article.

“The only thing we’re asking for in city government is to simply write the truth, good or bad,” Mr. Espy said. “And I’m very thankful that the judge agreed to impose a T.R.O. against a rogue newspaper that insisted on telling lies against the municipality.”

Adam Steinbaugh, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which supports free speech, criticized the city’s lawsuit, writing on social media that it was “wildly unconstitutional.”

He said that governments “can’t sue for libel” under New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark First Amendment decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964.

“Free-speech threats come from all corners of society, whether it’s the president of the United States or a mayor, and they come from all political parties,” Mr. Steinbaugh said in an interview on Wednesday. He said that once “we start eroding those rights, all other rights are threatened.”

Layne Bruce, executive director of the Mississippi Press Association, said he supported The Press Register’s right to publish the editorial and its effort to challenge the judge’s order.

“This is a rather astounding order,” he said, “and we feel it’s egregious and chilling and it clearly runs afoul of the First Amendment.”

Just Because He Says It Doesn’t Make It True

In retaliation for not changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, a decision Present Trump appeared to make on the spur of the moment, the AP – the Associated Press – one of the world’s preeminent news services – is banned from covering the White House.

On what level does that form of censorship make any sense?

No one should ever have the sole authority to rename the map of the world.

And if a news organization pauses on accepting an unsubstantiated, unauthorized edict, it appears that our government has determined that failure to comply is a punishable offense.

Presidents once relied on news services to reach the people, but today, the White House and President Trump are their communications companies. They no longer need the media. This communications machine no longer faces the hurdle of a gatekeeper or fact checker interfering with the ‘company line.’ This media empire now reaches a global audience in the space of a nanosecond.

Not long ago, government-dictated media was considered propaganda.
Sure, there has been anger from the press corp, and even the appearance of moral and professional outrage, but then, crickets.

Encouraging or enabling any dictatorship or accepting muzzling is a frightening harbinger of what may come next.

Tiffany Network At Risk of Losing Its Luster

It is being reported that CBS News is entering negotiations with the F.C.C. because a settlement with the Trump administration is politically expedient.

Expedient for the parent organization, Paramount? Apparently.

As reported in the NY Times, “But in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, has begun settlement discussions with representatives of Mr. Trump, according to several people with knowledge of the talks. Many executives at Paramount believe that settling the suit could help pave the way for the F.C.C. to approve Paramount’s planned multibillion-dollar merger with another company.”

Expedient also to avoiding any negative relations or a loss of access with the Trump White House? Perhaps true, but most likely a calculated decision based on fear of retribution from the press office.

The proposed settlement stems from a $10 billion lawsuit from President Trump over allegations of misleading editing in a CBS News 60 Minutes story from October 7, 2024.

Business settlements and political decisions based on real or imagined ramifications are one thing. But it is quite another for a major broadcaster to cave so willingly and early in the legal process. More alarming to veteran news people is the apparent surrender and kow tow to a personality.

If a story has been properly produced, vetted by experienced and senior editors, and scrubbed for accuracy, then the network should stand by the work. Stand by your reporters and editorial team. One presumes the experienced team at CBS 60 Minutes, the premier news magazine show on CBS, did their jobs properly and professionally. It would be a sad thing for risk-averse managers at the television network to scuttle the work and settle for the expedience of a new business deal.

Quick! Multiple Choice Quiz

CNN management told their top journalists not to editorialize or ‘express outrage’ during the inauguration coverage.

What’s MOST wrong with this?

CNN management had so little faith in the reporting skills of their journalists to be impartial observers and reporters that they needed to be muzzled by the bosses?
CNN’s stable of journalists is so unprofessional and unskilled expecting to wax poetic and share their opinions under the guise of news coverage, and they didn’t know that’s not their responsibility?
CNN ‘leaked’ their instructions from a presumably, professional and private meeting to curry favor with the new administration watchdogs, eager to pounce on any misstep or misdeed by a bona fide news organization?

From the NYPost story, “During the meeting, Thompson “made it clear that he did not want the coverage to relitigate the past,” according to Status reporter Oliver Darcy — an allusion to CNN’s historically hostile relationship with Trump.” (Italics mine)

What’s wrong with a historically hostile relationship between politics and the press? Did mean reporters hurt the feelings of the Trump 45? Did those nasties in the press room cause him a boo-boo for challenging his words and deeds?

And continuing from the Post, “Instead, he urged CNN staffers to focus on Trump’s second term and to be “open-minded” about the next four years.” Is that code for playing lovey-dovey or footsie from a corporate viewpoint?

It seems to me that a new cautiousness, perhaps a fear or threat of reprisal, and a growing timidity is setting the course for the next 4 years.

If the public prefers unchecked, unvarnished, unfiltered propaganda over the truth… that’s a dark choice.

Media Mayhem – The LA fires bring out the best and worst in reporting

This week’s fires in and around Los Angeles resemble an apocalypse.

Families lost loved ones; thousands more lost property accumulated over a lifetime.

The media coverage has been extensive on land and in the air. Anchors have raced from the safety and comfort of New York studios to appear earnestly reporting on the fire line.

 Snarky tabloid stories poked at anchors who tailored their Nomex fire retardant suits to appear fitted (more dashing?). In a holocaust, I suppose some news heavyweights think it best to look good while reporting on other’s suffering… before returning to the comfort of 4-star hotels for the night.

As my friend and colleague Bob Sirkin posed in an email today, “I am tired of watching network anchors trying to squeeze out the very last drops of emotion from victims. How much more do you want to ask the same banal questions to people who are left with nothing?”

The So California fires are a tragedy of unfathomable scope. Of course.

But dare we compare this natural destruction to human-caused misery in Gaza, the Ukraine, and Russia where cities have been leveled, buildings pancaked on residents asleep in their beds, and debris fields stretch for miles and miles – entire communities obliterated back to the stone age?

The media coverage and public interest in these stories has largely waned. Field reporters file stories about a horrific bombing or a gun battle, characterized by the news term “bang-bang.” But the rest of the story – about people…the losses they have sustained is largely sanitized from US media.

It’s absolutely as tragic, but if I may suggest, few if any of these victims likely have Go-Fund-Me pages.

The old bromide that all news is local is true, and the fires in California have greater resonance to fellow Americans than something happening thousands of miles away in a foreign country to people who are not “us.”

I get it.

Soon the fires will be contained. Even this weekend there will be less coverage as audiences over Saturday and Sunday decline and the newspapers shrink their page count. Anchors will return to their studios, where it is less expensive to sustain coverage.

The audience will tell pollsters that they’ve had enough, or feel overwhelmed, or worse yet, that the devastation is all beginning to look the same. And we’ll largely move on.

Newsroom cynics used to keep tally of what scope of devastation warranted network television news interest… hundreds of thousands of victims in a sub-continent typhoon barely earned a mention. Several thousand war casualties in Africa or several hundred killed in a South American earthquake might earn a flicker of acknowledgment. Scores in a domestic tragedy certainly earned a slot in the news window… but then, so too did a 2 car accident in New York’s Times Square so long as it was reported in the New York Post or Times.

I guess it’s all a matter of perspective after all.

Can Anything About a Nazi War Criminal Be Newsworthy Today?

I suppose it depends on your definition of news.

In the contemporary era of “fake” news, alternative facts, and presumed media bias, what constitutes news to you?

How do you define newsworthy?
Is it primarily what affirms or echoes your defined set of beliefs?
What or whoever endorses your accepted truths?
What boosts your self-esteem and opinions?

For some, traditionally, what’s considered news includes large and catastrophic events; proclamations of elected officials; wars and civil strife; as well as the work, decisions, or actions by anyone (or thing) that consequentially affect our lives, families, and communities, whether for good or bad. We note those who influence our lives, both positively and negatively.

Admittedly for some with a more limited scope, the only news they consume is whatever is positive and non-threatening in a world which increasingly seems so negative and beyond their control or effect.

The cliché of news being a first draft of history is also a truism. Equally true is the role of obituaries for and appreciation of people who played a role, even accidentally or tangentially, in history

I believe the most impactful stores are always about people – first and foremost. We best relate to those of our species. (Perhaps our pets second). Who’s interesting, perhaps entertaining, provocative, intriguing, or offensive?

Our most frequent triggers: who (and what) do we fear or make us angry?

Let’s take a deeper look at something which, on first blush, you may not consider newsworthy.

I pose this question: Can anything about the 1962 execution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann be newsworthy, or even interesting today?

Consider this:

An elderly man named Shalom Nagar died last month. His death received scant attention. It was reported in the Israeli press, on the BBC, in the New York Times… but little mention appeared elsewhere.
Most news gatekeepers determined that a story featuring a bit player in a global event 6-decades ago would generate or even deserve interest today. No buzz. Few clicks. The story was too old, or too difficult to tell briefly, and few remember or much care.

Who was he?

Shalom Nagar was the reluctant 23-year-old Israeli guard who hanged Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Shanghaied by the authorities and press-ganged onto the execution team, Nagar’s job was to release the trap door on the gallows.

Nagar’s story and Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s are intractably entwined in history. It is ironic that such a notorious war criminal who caused such suffering for the living and who, even after his death, still haunted and caused lifelong dismay – he scarred even his executioner.

A simple guy – a prison guard of no particular rank – a schlub selected against his will to do a job that no one else would accept… Nagar did that job as assigned. He was, to use the phrase, “just following orders” too.

He was the little story in the larger event, the small story in the big one. But can’t we all relate to something similar in our own life’s journey?

According to the NYTimes obit by Sam Roberts (Dec.5, 24), “Eichmann’s face was white as chalk, his eyes were bulging and his tongue was dangling out,” Mr. Nagar told Mishpacha magazine in 2005. “The rope rubbed the skin off his neck, and so his tongue and chest were covered with blood.”
He added: “I didn’t know that when a person is strangled all the air remains in his stomach, and when I lifted him, all the air that was inside came up and the most horrifying sound was released from his mouth — ‘baaaaa!’ I felt the Angel of Death had come to take me, too.”

Continuing from Roberts’ obit, “In discussing the execution with Mishpacha magazine, Mr. Nagar invoked Amalek, the biblical archenemy nation of ancient Israel, to justify his task.
In spite of the trauma, he said, he appreciated the value of his experience: God “commands us to wipe out Amalek, to ‘erase his memory from under the sky’ and ‘not to forget.’ I have fulfilled both.”

There is an irony here. I think that irony is what triggered media coverage; it is what caught my eye as a reporter/producer/editor/and teacher.

For executing someone convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the executioner too suffered mightily.

Nagar’s burden of taking a life became, apparently, a life-long cross for him to bear.

We presume Nagar found his peace, as is shared in Sam Roberts’ appreciation.
That does add context to a larger story as it reveals little-known-till-now-nuggets of history. And in that is an irony.

More than a half century after Eichmann’s execution, I submit a backstory is still interesting and informative – offering new details, or a previously unknown perspective or consequence. It meets my working definition of being news-worthy, being interesting and informative, shedding new light on people and events in our worlds.

My definition expands: Newsworthy is something that makes me pause and think as I take note of the evolving history.

So, what do you think? Was the New York Times, the BBC and the few others right to consider this newsworthy for their audiences?

Would you have made the same decision, or not, and why?

Does Accuracy and Completeness Matter? I think today’s NYTimes missed its mark.

A basic tenet of journalism is attributing statements, .pronouncements, proclamations, and declarations or expansions of war to those who made the decisions.

A basic rule for headline writers is to strive for clarity and completeness.

But in today’s (12.26.24) NYT is an apparent breakdown in both a headline and sub-headline that reads: “Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians
Surprised by Oct. 7 and fearful of another attack, Israel weakened safeguards meant to protect noncombatants, allowing officers to endanger up to 20 people in each airstrike. One of the deadliest bombardments of the 21st century followed.”

The problem here is the headline. The country made this decision? All the elected officials? All its citizens of every stripe and party? Everyone? Was there a vote? A referendum? The whole kit and caboodle? Israel loosened its rules?

It is partially inaccurate and in that, it feels unclear and imprecise.

The story’s lede properly attributes the decision to “Israel’s military leadership” but that’s still vague. Someone in the chain of command
is responsible for making this change. Shouldn’t s/he/they be named and take responsibility for their actions?

Just as a rule of journalism, decisions like this are made by people on behalf of a country’s policies. Don’t the readers of the Times deserve to know the “who” is in charge here? And, if there is concern for the safety of the decision-makers, then state that in the body of the story.

Just a thought: we should demand a completeness in all reporting, including headlines, lest any one misunderstand what is already a complicated and complex war.

And the beat goes on… and on

Just when I (foolishly, naively?) thought there couldn’t be yet another attempt to market the presidency, imagine my surprise to discover: Trump Fragrances.

https://gettrumpfragrances.com/

From Bibles to fragrances, airlines, steaks, vodkas, even University degrees, the Donald’s shopping list goes on to add new ventures…tho the eua de parfume is getting a bit thick.

With apologies to Sonny and Cher, these lyrics canter through my mind:
And the beat goes on, the beat goes on
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La-de-da-de-de, la-de-da-de-da

And the beat goes on (yes, the beat goes on)
And the beat goes on (and the beat goes on, on, on, on, on)
The beat goes on
And the beat goes on

The beat of all this commerce in the guise of government is hurting my head.

I feel as if we have returned to the Medieval Ages where one can buy indulgences from the church and crown. Is there a difference today?

Soliciting (demanding) money from donors for Inauguration Ball tickets is not unusual, it just seems the sums (thank you Elon, Jeff and many others) have become extraordinary.

It’s OK to market a political campaign, but I am left to wonder, after you win… after you pay the bills, when does it stop?

When does the Office of the Presidency become beyond price?

When does a man who is ostensibly serving his country decide that obsessively seeking greater profit is enough?

Try Apologizing!

After all else fails, it’s still not too late and best to remember the truth was always the best alternative.

When deep in the middle of a crisis, acknowledge your responsibility and even complicity, and pledge to make a clean sweep of whatever are the causes.

I provide crisis training for clients and so am admittedly watching United Healthcare closely, tho I am not involved professionally.

I am puzzled by the apparent silence from United Healthcare’s corporate communications in the wake of this crisis. (Visual analogy: ostrich).
What can they be waiting for, unless they concede their reputation is beyond repair?

At first, it would have been ‘easy’ to play the victim card… their CEO was viciously assassinated. Now they can play the victim card again, that their business is the target of a deranged attacker.

But when will they address the real problem? So many of their customers hate their business practices and those of the healthcare insurance industry at large. What do you do to fix a tattered reputation when your brand appears to be despised?

I’m skeptical that silence is the solution. I have better ideas, not that anyone has asked me.

Paid Media? Media for Sale? A Federal court judge wants to know more in the Google-Oracle Suit

Today’s decision by a Federal court judge ordering Oracle and Google to disclose who they paid to write about their “JAVA trial” poses interesting questions about corporate media management — who pays for what to be written and what extent does that have on influence within the industry?
What would you expect that answer to be?
 All Things D’s filing Judge Orders Google and Oracle to Disclose Who They Paid to Write About Java Trial has the story quoting “Judge William Alsup, who presided over the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, wrote in his order that he’s “concerned that the parties and/or counsel herein may have retained or paid print or Internet authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have and/or may publish comments on the issues in this case.”
We’ve seen purchased coverage before in terms of trade press, I’m thinking especially of the sychophants who write gushingly about the latest Apple release and who (masquerading as reporters) would leap to their feet to applaud Steve Jobs. Other companies (Cisco’s news site) commissions articles by well-known and reputable authors — though one might assume they are not (often) going to either write nor would Cisco (or others likely) post unflattering comments, reviews, analysis or criticisms. This is coverage purchased to put forth the issue in the most flattering light possible under the circumstances.
It is corporate communications imitating news. It’s a lot like Sorkin’s The Newsroom imitating real news rooms.
 BP Oil was insidious in the way it aggregated media coverage during the gulf oil spill while inserting reports from its own commissioned reporters…. it did make a disclaimer but only in the tiniest of print. It was clever – in the midst of critical news it seemed unexpected to read glowing accounts of the importance of big oil to the community and their years of service and commitment to the economy and residents.
I don’t argue that this is happening – I find it refreshing that a federal judge is concerned enough to demand a review into how pervasive it may have been during his trial.
I find Judge Alsup’s order compelling. His full order can be found here .