The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md., disclosed today that a reporter had resigned after being tied to a prank telephone call earlier this month involving the mayor and a local news blogger, an incident that escalated into a "political firebomb."
In a column, Executive Editor Greg Bassett says the reporter -- whom he didn't identify by name -- had failed to tell the paper about witnessing a late-evening phone call to the blogger, ostensibly by an inebriated mayor Jim Ireton.
The blogger, Joe Albero, later wrote a damning post under the headline, "Mayor Jim Ireton so drunk he can't remember he called." The June 4 post got lots of attention, drawing more than 200 reader comments over the following 24 hours.
Ireton denied making the phone call, spurring a police inquiry that uncovered a trail of public records leading back to an "associate" of the reporter, Bassett says. "The reporter wasn't directly involved," he writes, "but the reporter's involvement merited full and quick disclosure."
Bassett continues: "At this stage no charges have been filed and it's doubtful that any are forthcoming. What is certain, however, is our reporter could have done better in service to our readers and citizens. Therefore, we have accepted the reporter's resignation from the newspaper."
Bassett assured mayor
The incident is all the more embarrassing because Albero has been one the paper's sharpest critics. In December 2011, he tangled with the daily over whether it was qualified to publish lucrative legal notices. As a local news blogger, he competes with the Times for advertising.
It's unclear whether the Times had reported the prank call before today. In his column, Bassett wrote: "The mayor and I discussed the situation personally on June 4; I assured the mayor that I didn't find merit in the blog post and the newspaper had no intent to develop the matter as a story."
Albero, who has said he'll run for mayor next year, has been no less critical of Ireton.
The Times is one of Gannett's smaller newspapers. Its Monday-Saturday circulation is 16,493; Sunday is 23,456, according to the March 31 ABC report.
Related: Portland Oregonian fires editor in March after she misled paper about circumstances of another editor's death.
Mountain or molehill: Did the reporter really need to resign? 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.
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| Mayor Ireton |
The blogger, Joe Albero, later wrote a damning post under the headline, "Mayor Jim Ireton so drunk he can't remember he called." The June 4 post got lots of attention, drawing more than 200 reader comments over the following 24 hours.
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| Blogger Albero |
Bassett continues: "At this stage no charges have been filed and it's doubtful that any are forthcoming. What is certain, however, is our reporter could have done better in service to our readers and citizens. Therefore, we have accepted the reporter's resignation from the newspaper."
Bassett assured mayor
The incident is all the more embarrassing because Albero has been one the paper's sharpest critics. In December 2011, he tangled with the daily over whether it was qualified to publish lucrative legal notices. As a local news blogger, he competes with the Times for advertising.
It's unclear whether the Times had reported the prank call before today. In his column, Bassett wrote: "The mayor and I discussed the situation personally on June 4; I assured the mayor that I didn't find merit in the blog post and the newspaper had no intent to develop the matter as a story."
Albero, who has said he'll run for mayor next year, has been no less critical of Ireton.
The Times is one of Gannett's smaller newspapers. Its Monday-Saturday circulation is 16,493; Sunday is 23,456, according to the March 31 ABC report.
Related: Portland Oregonian fires editor in March after she misled paper about circumstances of another editor's death.
Mountain or molehill: Did the reporter really need to resign? 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.
I guess this deserves being here, in that a reporter resigned for something perhaps unethical. But you seem to have glossed and glided over a really ugly and complicated situation. Just a quick bit of research tells me that calling this guy a "local news blogger" may be giving him entirely too much credit (can you call this guy a journalist?). A google search quickly turns up a site dedicated to his "victims," claiming he's libeled and trashed perhaps hundreds. (Your kind of blogger!) And he's running for mayor?!? And you call him a "news blogger"? Interesting that you didn't point out in this longish post that one of the real problems with opinionated bloggers is posting damning information that turns out to be wrong, as many bloggers are either not trained to try to sort through complicated situations, or they simply post what they hope is true. The latter seems to have happened here. Not to mention how untrue posts by biased bloggers, hiding behind the cover of providing "news," often lather up a bunch of incensed anonymous followers. Over nothing. Has a familiar ring to it. Oh, and your headline is wrong.
ReplyDeleteI live in Salisbury. Joe Albero is a huge drama queen and far from a "news" blogger. If anything, he's an aggregator who reposts work -- until recently, almost always without credit -- from newspapers and TV stations.
ReplyDeleteAnd when he does report, he frequently gets it wrong. For example, take a look at the last graf of his post about this post, where he refers to this as "written by Gannett." He didn't even bother to spend the three minutes it would take to discover that this is an anti-Gannett blog.
http://sbynews.blogspot.com/2012/06/daily-times-makes-claim-reporter.html
Jim - your hed should say phone call FROM mayor
ReplyDeleteYikes! "One of Gannett's smaller Newspapers ..." Where does that leave the Courier News, now that its circulation is 15,533 Mon.-Sat. and 20,165 Sunday?
ReplyDeleteStrike 2 on the headline. The call, according to the editor's column, was neither to nor from the editor.
Delete10:52 Thank you. I've fixed that.
ReplyDelete11:24 Huh?
ReplyDeleteOops...call neither from nor to MAYOR.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis demonstrates why we all need copyeditors.
ReplyDeleteJoe Albero calls it like he sees it. His so called "victims" are basically PO'ed only because he exposed something they didn't want anyone else to know-you know that old saying "the truth hurts?"
ReplyDeleteAlot of politicians don't like him because he has exposed the multi million dollar fiascos that have occured in Salisbury under their watch such as the Waste Water Treatment Plant and the old Salisbury Mall.
As far as the Daily Times I believe it's really gone down hill. There've been instances where it's been proven that they will omit portions of statements if they don't like the person such as they did with Councilwoman Cohen.
Now they publish this silly article without even contacting the main player involved. More incompetence displayed again but we expect no more from them around here in Salisbury.
The letter from Bassett ran on A1, too. Pretty remarkable.
ReplyDeleteThat newsroom, though, has only Greg remaining as the designated adult. It's staffed by kids straight out of college putting in their time for a few years until they can move on up. And there's not much to do in Salisbury except drink, so shit like this is more or less a given.
I guess Albozo doesn't know there is a phone app that can make your call from any number you want.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how unreliable the blogger is, the fact that he says he'll be a mayoral candidate and then accuses the current mayor of drinking and dialing, strikes me as something the citizens of Salisbury might like to read. I'd be curious to know the editor's thinking on keeping this out of the paper until one of his own people was connected and he had no choice except to report it. Too cozy with City Hall?
ReplyDeleteyeah right, 1:12. And I guess this unnamed "phone app" also makes a voice sound the person whose display comes up also?
ReplyDeletehttp://salisburynews.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/straw-poll-douche-bag-or-super-douche-bag-with-a-cigar/#comments
ReplyDeleteGreg Bassett was demoted today.
ReplyDelete4:44 Are you talking about the new GM coming in?
ReplyDeleteBy demoted, I mean Bassett was relieved of duties.
ReplyDeleteGreg Bassett says: "The reporter wasn't directly involved, but the reporter's involvement merited full and quick disclosure." Wrong: The reporter, Sarah Lake, was directly involved; it was her work phone on which the prank call was made. The phone was registered in the local news editor's name, Joe Carmean. This is why the police went to the Daily Times to investigate.
ReplyDeleteJim, you can no longer claim you don't "scrub" erroneous information. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteBecause you didn't make the previous chain of errors clear, now we have people like 5:13 repeating the same mistake.
Start screening this stuff. Right now, there is no reason for anyone to trust the information presented here.
4:51 More specifically, I believe Tom Claybaugh -- who is chief of ad sales at the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle -- has been promoted to general manager at The Daily Times.
ReplyDeleteApparently, Bassett has nominally held those duties until now.
5:27 By work phone, I mean iPhone. The pranking didn't happen in the newsroom.
ReplyDelete5:43 Nominally, schnominally. Yesterday, Bassett was general manager/executive editor; today he's just the EE. We'll see what tomorrow holds.
ReplyDeleteThe population of Salisbury and surrounding Wicomico County is just shy of 100,000.
ReplyDeleteBut this story illustrates how much smaller an area can seem at the intersection of media and government.
Bassett was thrust into the GM role when the publisher was eliminated. I don't think he wanted it to begin with.
ReplyDeleteSo what do we know about the reporter? Another greenhorn hired on the cheap by Gannett? What was her work like before Mayorgate?
ReplyDeleteAnd what are local readers to expect about coverage of His Dishonor going forward?
Yes, Jim, Salisbury is smaller at "the intersection of media and government" than its 30,000 population. The Daily Times helped make that so. By its biased and unethical practices, it has pretty much run off any decent, moral people to run for city office. I'm surprised the three decent members of council are still there, but that's guts for you.
ReplyDeleteSome of your "in the business" readers could win a Pulitzer for doing a real investigative job on what's gone down in Salisbury for the last 15 years and the role of a Gannett "smaller paper" in that once nice town's downward spiral.
Bassett says: "At this stage no charges have been filed and it's doubtful that any are forthcoming." Really? Maryland has fairly strict two-party consent laws when it comes to the recording of phone calls. How do we know this prank call wasn't recorded?
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure: In the late 1970s, when I was a kid, my friends and I made prank calls, and we sure as hell recorded them (with a tape recorder on another phone).
7:11 Bassett is going to be thrust out the exit. I wouldn't be surprised if Wilmington takes over the whole operation in Salisbury.
ReplyDeleteBassett got caught up in the drama with Albero. He has a way of drawing people into these pissing matches they would have been better off ignoring. Just as the Sheriff, the States Attorney, and the Mayor have recently learned. And you can't get into a pissing contest with a skunk. You just can't win.
ReplyDeleteWait a moment.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the real point of this story, from what I gather, the following:
The drunk mayor prank calls a local "pot-stirer" (every town has this guy) from the newspaper's newsroom... right??
And then after the blogger guy makes this call public, the mayor denies the call... right?
Yet, this reporter was a witness to the call, from their own newsroom ... so know the mayor's denial is a lie.. right?
And this reporter stands by and says nothing to her newspaper bosses who then decide the blogger's claim has no merit and decides to not do a story on the incident.... right?
Damn, this newspaper is a mess...
The point is... this is what happens when we, the "establishment media" takes the side and cozies up to local politicians AGAINST these "populist" blogger types... we end up looking like...
The Man.
No wonder the public distrusts us.
Didn't we used to champion The People?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's more like the Mayor and the reporter were out doing some elbow bending and in their inebriated state decided it would be a good idea to call the local blogger "pot stirrer."
ReplyDeletePot stirrer then proceeds to make an issue out of the late night call on his blog.
Mayor denies making the call and the Daily Times is covering for him and saying it was an imposter.
The paper has a new story today naming the caller, apparently making no attempt to contact him for comment, while still not naming the reporter. Www.delmarvanow.com
ReplyDeleteHopkins, I would like to see one, JUST ONE, reporter of integrity who reads your blog step forward and do some real investigative report on this. You think this is just small town antics, but that Gannett newspaper and certain officials, past and present, not just at the local level, IMHO, are up to their eyeballs in abuse of power. That poor town hasn't had an honest source of justice to turn to in ages. That's why the crap just goes on and on. I don't live there any more, but many of my friends still do. The place is just oozing with the dirtiest politics and more so that decent people are literally run out of town.
ReplyDelete