[We're talking 3" -- max: Last year's Indy 500 pace car]
Zoibi, you may recall, led a well-publicized battle with the Newspaper Guild in late 2006, when the Star's newsroom was reorganizing around the Information Center model. Management wanted staffers to write odious advertorials. The Guild said no. The Star eventually backed down. Bottom line: no love lost between Zoibi and many newsroom staffers.
Fast forward to yesterday, when Holladay had a tip Zoibi was tooling around in an Indianapolis 500 'pace' car -- a freebie that runs counter to at least the spirit of Gannett's ethics policy on avoiding conflicts of interest. (Replica pace cars are promotional vehicles loaned to VIPs and other business types in the weeks leading up the famous Indianapolis 500 race, which this year is May 25.)
Holladay got the runaround when she called Zoibi's office, to ask about his driving one of the cars. "Gannett makes a big stink out of not accepting freebie tickets for its reviewers, etc. -- a policy I think is good,'' she wrote. "So what is the deal? What is good for the goose, isn't good for the gander?"
Good questions!
[Photo: last year's official Indy 500 pace car, a Corvette]
Gannett is a loathsome business model and I do not personally know Ali Zoibi- but in this matter he is taking an unfair drubbing.
ReplyDeleteHe is on the board of the 500 Festival. Every board member-- all 33-- get to drive faux pace cars for a month. It is traditional and has always been thus. It is a semi-perk for being on the board...which in itself is no little expense.
Some years the "pace cars" have been less than desirable. But of course when they are Corvettes....
where does zobi using that car, whether on loan or rented cheaply, fit into the ethics policy? if a gannett vp is going to drive a car that's advertising something, it should be the paper/web site, not the 500-mile race.
ReplyDelete@4:07: Zoibi's membership on the event advisory board makes no difference: Just because other board members get these cars doesn't mean Zoibi MUST to drive one. Here's the bottom line: How does his driving a faux pace car benefit the Star's readers and other customers? How does it benefit Gannett's shareholders?
ReplyDeleteIf reporters aren't allowed to join civic organizations, management shouldn't be allowed to either (and pick up freebies along the way).
ReplyDelete"If reporters aren't allowed to join civic organizations, management shouldn't be allowed to either (and pick up freebies along the way)."
ReplyDeleteThis true? Gannett reporters cannot join civic organizations? Since when?
Though it would not surprise me, as the Star has ceased to be either the city's institutional memory or it's civic conscience. Youngsters scrambling through a revolving door do not contribute to either.
I still say Zoibi is getting a bad rap, however. The purpose of courtesy pace cars is part of the overall effort to create community excitement and raise awareness about the 500, the city's equivalent of the Super Bowl and World Series rolled into one. You have to be in Indy in May to Get It.
If it were OK for Zoibi to drive the car, he would have taken Ruth's phone call.
ReplyDeleteObviously, the man is embarrassed at being caught in an ethical no-no!
Reporters and editors have been told they can't join Rotary or Lions, volunteer at humane shelters, etc. Rule doesn't seem to apply to others like copy editors or designers though.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense to me...how is a reporter supposed to stay objective when writing stories if s/he is a member of a civic association? Wouldn't a reporter who volunteers at an animal shelter have a difficult time writing about the surge in popularity of boutique breed dogs and couldn't the breeders then accuse the reporter/editor/paper of bias if it's found out?
ReplyDeleteIf you want to be in the vaunted newsroom, you have to make some sacrifices.
agreed, writers covering government/politics shouldn't have political involvement, and the person writing about the humane society or the zoo shouldn't volunteer there. but the political writer should be allowed to volunteer at the zoo/humane society. should the religion writer be forbidden to go to church? or the sportswriter to cheer for his child's high school team (which, of course, he shouldn't be covering.)
ReplyDeletenot even gannett OWNS staff members, it just thinks it does.
as for zobi, it didn't take the advertorial thing to make the staff dislike him. his attitude in negotiations was plenty.