Nashville echoes L.A. Times and Staples Center

The Tennessean's under-the-radar investment in a new Nashville convention center recalls the abuse heaped on the Los Angeles Times over its undisclosed financial ties to the Staples Center sports arena, Reuters reporter Robert MacMillan tweets today.

In 1999, the Times signed a revenue-sharing agreement with Staples officials, splitting advertising proceeds from a magazine it published about the center. The paper was pilloried for what media watchers described as an ethical breach of the Chinese wall that stood between the newsroom and the paper's business side.

In Nashville, the Tennessean gave $15,000 to a group backing a new $585 million taxpayer-financed convention center. The paper endorsed the project in a Sunday editorial, but didn't disclose its contribution until Wednesday, in a news story -- the day after government officials approved the project.

Top editor Mark Silverman defended the newsroom, saying that he, too, was caught by surprise when the paper's contribution was disclosed in newly released public documents. He also said the money didn't compromise the newsroom's reporting.

But what did Publisher Carol Hudler know? Most Gannett editorial page boards -- the folks who decide the content of editorials -- include publishers among their members. (Many now also include the top newsroom executive, too -- an ethical problem in itself, since news columns are supposed to be unbiased, neither favoring nor opposing the paper's editorial position.) In its Wednesday story, the Tennessean said the $15,000 was given over three years, but doesn't give more details. At least some of that money was given before Hudler's appointment as publisher in late November, so it's possible the former Fort Myers, Fla., publisher didn't know anything about what her predecessor, Ellen Leifeld, had done.

Still, was their any reason why Leifeld herself couldn't have told the editorial board, so the paper could disclose the contribution in its earliest opinion pieces on the project? There would still be concern about the financial ties to the center. But at least that would have eliminated this week's surprise factor, and allowed the newsroom to disclose the fact in its reporting as well. Revealing the details after the center was approved unnecessarily raised reader suspicions about what other information the Tennessean might be withholding.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Image: today's Times, Newseum]