To ‘seek truth and report it’ is what we do

I remember the incident clearly. The Southeast Sun receptionist said she had received a phone call asking why we had not posted information about allegations being made about a now-former Enterprise High School teacher. She said the caller wanted to know why the “story” was “blowing up” Facebook but we didn’t have a single mention on our website.

Why indeed. Well, here is why. As journalists—and as human beings—we live by a code of ethics. The Society of Professional Journalists has a formal written one but most journalists I know carry that credo into their personal lives.

Seek truth and report it. Minimize harm. Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Be accountable and transparent. That’s the short version. “Public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy,” reads the code’s preamble. “Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough.”

In the EHS former teacher incident, we were exhausting all resources to obtain accurate information from credible sources.

Those who know me know that if my mother says she loves me, I check it out with three other sources. We will not post or publish a story unless we are prepared to stand behind it. At The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun Courier, we take responsibility for the accuracy of each article we write. We put our names and our email addresses on each article we write. There is not much hiding when your face graces each opinion column you write.

At a recent Dale County Commission meeting, a person questioned why we had reported on part of a previous meeting during which a citizen expressed his opinion on a controversial subject. We reported it because it was an incident that happened, in a public forum, at a public meeting. Every part of every meeting is the most important part of that meeting for the person affected by it.

“Journalists should be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information,” according to the SPJ Code of Ethics. Persistence isn’t mentioned but it should be. Case in point: Written minutes of the March 29 Enterprise Board of Education meeting reflect that the president “presented a consulting agreement between Mr. Ross Cotter and the Enterprise City Board of Education.”

The Enterprise City Council meetings are available online at the city’s website. For some reason, the Enterprise Board of Education meetings are not. But that is a story for another day.

In this particular case, I was there at the EBOE meeting so I can tell you that the board did approve—and I quote from the meeting agenda— a “consulting agreement on various construction items.” With whom and for what was not outlined, but I will quote directly from the EBOE minutes in the interest of presenting the official record of what occurred.

“This agreement allows Mr. (Ross) Cotter to serve as a liaison for the board to work with current legal matters and construction projects until their completion and all related affairs are finished,” the minutes state. “Mr. Cotter will receive no compensation or expense reimbursement for his work.”

EBOE member Dorothy Richardson made the motion to approve the consulting agreement and Dr. Danny Whitaker second the motion. The board voted 3 to 0 to approve the consulting agreement. Cotter abstained from voting, the minutes state.

That evening chatter on several social media sites suggested that the board had approved a contract with Cotter for a $1 fee. I was asked whether we were going to report about the school board contracting—in any kind of way—with a seated board member.

When we asked the schools’ central office for a copy of the “consulting agreement on various construction items,” we were told that neither party involved had signed the contract and it was not a contract until it was signed by both parties. Next we were told that the contract had been signed by EBOE Superintendent Dr. Camille Wright but not yet by “the other party” and it was not a contract until it was.

Repeated requests to the central office for a copy of the “consulting agreement on various construction items” have beenmet with the repeated—and I must say very polite and timely—response that we would get a copy of it when it was signed.

Math is not my forte but even I know that more days have passed than I have fingers to count with. Persistence will hopefully result in taxpaying citizens knowing which contracts the EBOE signs and with whom. But I hope it will not go unnoticed that it should not have to take this much effort to “seek the news and report it.”

More recently, a representative of an all-volunteer nonpartisan citizen’s group, whose mission is promotion of transparency, participation and collaboration in city government, addressed the Republican Women of Coffee County. Before reporting any of that presentation, we reached out to the mayor of Enterprise to ask for any comments he had on the topics discussed at the RWCC meeting. The whole issue—both sides—is outlined in two articles, side by side, in equal length, on the front of the April 27 issue of The Southeast Sun. My point is only that a media source can hardly be fairer than that.

I had the privilege once upon a time of working for Howard Quattlebaum, the man who founded The Southeast Sun. I learned countless life lessons from watching this man who taught by quiet example, by “walking the talk.”

One such example involved an article that I had written about the skin health hazards of sun tanning. I would like to say this example is about a far more world-impacting subject. But it was a feature story, in the lifestyle section, about the effects of sun tanning on the skin.

A person in the sun tanning business called Mr. Howard that very day the article was published and very angrily demanded a retraction. After patiently listening to everything the person had to say, Mr. Howard told the person that he had the article right in front of him and could see nothing untrue or inaccurate in the article, noting that it cited the opinion of several dermatologists.

I’d like to say that was the end of it but it wasn’t. The sun tanning business person had a friend, who owned an unrelated business, call Mr. Howard and threaten to pull his advertising from The Southeast Sun if the sun tanning article wasn’t “retracted.”

A much-younger-me was very distraught over the whole incident but Mr. Howard calmly said that he’d assured the complainer that we would do an article on the benefits of sun tanning on the skin—as soon as we received information from dermatologists listing them. And, Mr. Howard added, when the other business called to run advertising with us again, it might possibly be without the discount they had previously enjoyed.

No, the pros and cons of sun tanning is not a world changing news issue. But that day I clearly understood I was watching an example of distinguishing news from advertising and an aim to “seek the truth and report it.”

Michelle Mann is a staff writer for The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun-Courier. The opinions of this writer are her own and not the opinion of the paper. She can be reached at (334) 393-2969 or by email at [email protected].