Friday, January 02, 2009

You know something's up at Freedom Forum when Tara Connell springs into action on her day off

I rarely hear from Gannett's official spokeswoman -- and then, only in response to a very specific question. So, what a surprise it was one day last year when I got an e-mail from Tara Connell, completely unprompted -- and on a Sunday, no less.

Earlier that day, I'd posted under the headline, "Freedom Forum family values, Gannett style." In 2006, I reported, the private foundation had spent $425,545 on wages and expenses for founder Al Neuharth. But it spent only $105,500 on grants for 69 needy Chips Quinn Scholars -- the young minority journalists Freedom Forum says it cares so much about.

The retired Gannett CEO launched Freedom Forum in Washington, D.C., in 1991 with $650 million in Gannett capital handed over under duress by shareholders. The foundation has been run ever since as Neuharth's personal domain, Gannett Blog found in a review of more than 9,000 pages of its annual public reports to the Internal Revenue Service.

2:42 p.m. PT, Sunday, April 6, 2008
At that moment, Connell thought it was urgent for me to know the following: "To my knowledge, there are no current Gannett employees working for the Freedom Forum. To call them Gannett insiders is highly inaccurate."

This was a reference to the lead on that day's post: "Run by a roster of Gannett insiders and political luminaries, Freedom Forum has done more than build a much-discussed $450 million news museum in Washington, D.C."

I told Connell I disagreed, and posted a follow-up the next day, showing all the ways Freedom Forum was stocked with Gannett insiders. And this was way before the most recent example.

(My e-mail exchange with Connell grew more interesting; see the bottom of this post.)

The lady doth protest too much
Fast forward to today, and another unlikely Connell e-mail. But this time it's to a different blogger: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion editor Frank Lockwood, who writes on his Bible Belt Blogger:

On New Year’s Eve, I reported that the Freedom Forum, a supposedly non-partisan organization devoted to promoting journalism, is also funding the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. In that post, I said the Freedom Forum "has close ties to the Gannett newspaper chain."

This morning, New Year's Day, I received the following note from Gannett's top spokesperson: "Gannett is an entirely separate entity from the Freedom Forum. We have no say or influence over what they fund. -- Tara Connell, vice president of corporate communications at Gannett."

Such bad blood between The 11th Floor and Freedom Forum!

USAT doesn't have 'say or influence'?
Perhaps Connell forgot that Gannett owns the nation's No. 1 circulation newspaper. Its top editor is Ken Paulson (left), a member of Freedom Forum's governing board of trustees, who will become the foundation's president and chief operating officer on Feb. 1.

And, come to think of it, USA Today really hasn't done a lot of reporting on Freedom Forum during the past year, has it? And that was despite the fact I handed the newspaper and its 450-member newsroom this tip -- followed by a second one, with a key document.

To be sure, there was that story about the Newseum, the one with the very awkward-reading disclosure: "The Newseum, developed and funded by the independent and non-partisan Freedom Forum, has a number of ties to USA TODAY, including a common founder, Al Neuharth. Newseum president Peter Prichard, Newseum executive director Joe Urschel, USA TODAY editor Ken Paulson and a number of Newseum executives have worked for both organizations."

Now, if Connell doesn't like seeing reports of the obvious ties between Gannett and Freedom Forum, maybe she could arrange for Paulson, the Freedom Forum trustee, to sic some investigative reporters on the foundation he's about to help lead. (Or, Connell could assign it herself -- assuming she takes control of some of USAT's reporting staff as part of ContentOne.)

Is Paulson a Gannett insider?
That Sunday afternoon last April, Connell and I debated Freedom Forum Trustee Paulson's status in an e-mail exchange that I forgot until earlier this evening. It began when I wrote the following:

Tara: As you know, Ken Paulson is a senior Gannett employee. I believe he also is a member of the board of trustees of Freedom Forum. Question for you: What role, if any, did Ken Paulson have in Al Neuharth's $425,545 pay package in 2006?

She replied, but evaded my question: "Jim . . . Gannett the company is not connected in any way with the Freedom Forum. Ken is not a Gannett officer and certainly not an insider of the company. I personally don't consider a trustee as someone 'working for' the Freedom Forum. Nevertheless, it is highly misleading to say plural 'Gannett insiders' when you are referring to a single Gannett employee who is a trustee of an unrelated foundation."

We went back and forth some more, until she wrote: "You refer to Gannett insiders -- plural and in present tense. Ken is not a Gannett insider by any definition. So who do you consider a Gannett insider, present tense, who also is an employee or trustee of the Freedom Forum?"

My reply: "I will be delighted to answer that question shortly."

Soon after, I posted my follow-up.

Got an impertinent question for Gannett spokeswoman Connell (left)? Please post it in the comments section, below. You'll be glad you did! To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

15 comments:

  1. This is one more glaring example of two things that Gannett should adopt as guiding principles:
    1. Actions speak louder than words, and
    2. People aren't stupid.

    That company can push its brand by clinging to airport shops, buying up "successful" ventures and all. But it's a news business and that means its every action is under constant scrutiny. That's all the more reason to avoid not only conflicts of interest, but even the slighest appearance of something that the public could perceive as---um, shady?

    Gannett can preach brands. But its the people (customers) who form their opinions of the company. People aren't stupid.

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  2. So, help me here. When publishers apply Gannett Foundation money doled to individual properties to local non-profits, isn't that influence over what the Foundation is doing. Or is that a removed hand?

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  3. "Ken is not a Gannett officer and certainly not an insider of the company."

    Hope poor Ken knows how little Tara thinks of him! Geez... you honcho their biggest newspaper and they don't even consider you an insider. What's it take to join the in-crowd?

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  4. Tara must have graduated from the It Depends On What The Definition of Is Is School of Doubletalk. (Which, ironically, just received a $40,000 grant from the Dubows.)

    Seriously, I almost choked on my Wheaties this morning when I read her urgent e-mail to you clarifying that no current Gannett employees work at the Freedom Forum.

    Well, thanks for clearing that up! We'll just gloss over the fact that about a zillion and one former Gannett employees work in executive positions at the Freedom Forum, including one new delivery named Ken Paulson, who is under the adorable impression that he's going to the "Yankee Stadium of the First Amendment." I guess it's just a coincidence that Newseum officers Charles Overby, Al Neuharth, Mary Kay Blake, Joe Urschel, Peter Prichard, Max Page, Pam Galloway-Tabb et al. worked for the same mystery company before joining the FF.

    Yes, those folks don't currently work for Gannett, so Tara's technically right. But let's make no mistake: the Freedom Forum has been the country club retirement pasture of choice for Gannett execs since its creation (heck, it was created for this reason) and Tara ain't going to change any hearts and minds with one e-mail.

    Good try, though.

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  5. Where has the Freedom Forum been with our profession in crisis and meltdown? The Poynter Institute and the National Press Club have moved to be of assistance to journalists who have been laid off or accepted buyouts, and some universities and non-profits are forming plans to help keep journalism afloat in the midst of newspaper shutdowns and cutbacks. The Freedom Forum has done nothing, and instead gives money to the non-journalistic, pet project enterprises that Jim has listed here on this blog, and bloated salaries to execs. It is ridiculous for Paulsen to call the Freedom Forum the "Yankee Stadium of the First Amendment" when it has had no game plan whatsoever as public service journalism crumbles at Gannett and elsewhere. Not a peep out of this outfit. Instead the spokeswoman is quibbling over whether "Gannett insiders" work there. Amazing! More like the T-Ball League of the First Amendment. Wait, that's an insult to t-ball.

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  6. Good job, Jim. You've fulfilled the vision of Andrew Carnegie: "Let them sweat a bit." Ask ProPublica for a grant.

    Tara, no one said making $135,000/year was going to be easy. Suck it up, madam.

    Slick Al and his Rat Pack were pretty good at making hick-town mayors sweat. Let's see how good they are, getting it back in return.

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  7. 11:06 said, "The Freedom Forum has done nothing, and instead gives money to the non-journalistic, pet project enterprises that Jim has listed here on this blog, and bloated salaries to execs."

    Right on, right on, right on. Yankee Stadium, my tush. Just like Katie Holmes, who never once got to experience the "beloved" Tom Cruise (in declaring his love for her on Oprah's couch, he saw to that), Ken Paulson is never going to enjoy the country club retirement pasture Freedom Forum he thought he was signing on to.

    Like Sharon what'shername told her bosses at Enron, these guys are going to implode in a sea of questionable ethical dilemmas.

    Good luck, Ken.

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  8. Hey everybody there seems to be some confusion here. The Freedom Forum and the Gannett Foundation are two different entities. The Freedom Forum was started when Al Neuharth Retired as CEO of Gannett and remained as CEO of the Gannett Foundation. He then hijacked the Gannett Foundation which was funded by a large amount of Gannett Stock left to it by Frank Gannett to fund newsboys scholarships and support non-profit good works in communities served by Gannett Newspapers. AHN blackmailed Gannett into buying the Gannett Foundation Stock and then set up a new foundation "The Freedom Forum" completely out of reach of anyone who worked for Gannett. He loaded up the board with his old cronies so he could have carte blanche with its funds.
    Gannett now had a foundation with no staff and no financial resources so since then they have been donating/selling smaller newspapers to fund the Gannett Foundation. Any misappropriation of funds by one Foundation is unrelated to misappropriation of funds by the other. But Tara is correct, the corporate Gannett has no relationship with Freedom Forum. In fact I would bet that most of the staff that is on corporate who was there when AHN was can't wait for him to pass on.

    BTW Tara is using the SEC definition of an insider which would be an officer of the company or in a position to have access to insider information. As Editor of USAT Ken Paulson wouldn't fit that as USAT is part of an affiliate Gansat and technically not on corporate staff.

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  9. 12:36 makes a good point, though I don't think anyone is guilty of conflating the issues here. Jim did some incredible digging on the Gannett Foundation and it's habit of making it's executives look more philanthropic than they actually are. He then turned the same lens on the Freedom forum, which we all know has no official ties to Gannett anymore, but is packed to the rafters with former Gannett execs nonetheless. As the folks who created the Freedom Forum all came from Gannett, it's not a stretch by any means and certainly worth a look.

    p.s. You're right about the legal definition of "insider." I was talking about the less literal definition.

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  10. I agree that Tara was using the SEC definition, and I can't blame her for that.

    How about this for the definition of a non-SEC insider:

    A Gannett employee with :

    1) Access to non-public information about major future strategic projects...

    and/or

    2) The ability to significantly influence company policy

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  11. For the purposes of my Freedom Forum inquiry, a Gannett insider is anyone who has been kissing Neuharth's 84-year-old (possibly suntanned) butt within the past year.

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  12. 12:36 here again. ABout Jim's last comment. "Good One Pumba"

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  13. I don't understand why people still feel like they have to kiss his ass.

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  14. I hate to break it to you, but insider is a significant term that the SEC places upon individuals with in depth knowledge of company operations. I can't imagine a single editor, probably only a couple publishers, who would remotely be considered insiders under government regulations.

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  15. 12:28 PM:

    I agree and that's a good thing -

    I was on the business side (I don't want to say where, but not a manager) and my contacts w/editorial beyond the trivial all had to have VP approval to ensure the wall stayed put.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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