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Should we have told?

With the publication of the Kevin Graves story two weeks ago, ‘New Times’ unleashed a rain of protest throughout the county that’s still raging. Did we do the right thing? Here’s what some local and national journalists think of our decision.

BY DANIEL BLACKBURN

Ever since the details of Kevin Graves’ lewd conduct conviction were reported in these pages, virtually everyone in SLO County has formed an opinion on it, and the controversy continues fanning heated debates.

On Oct. 3, New Times published a short news article about a lewd behavior conviction handed down by Judge Barry LaBarbera in March to Kevin Graves, a producer and television personality at KSBY-TV in San Luis Obispo. Graves received a $500 fine and two years probation for the violation, but it never made it into the news until it appeared in New Times.

Graves is married to Sharon Graves, the popular KSBY-TV weather forecaster. When the New Times story broke, Sharon Graves abruptly quit her job and left SLO County with her husband and children. She had already surprised KSBY viewers on Sept. 26 when she’d announced her decision to move with her family to Illinois at the end of October.

The public response to her sudden departure was overwhelming. KSBY-TV aired an editorial on the matter after its evening broadcast, criticizing New Times. Most callers and letter writers decried New Times’ decision to publish the story. Radio talk show hosts were flooded with caller comments.

Most of them have said New Times shouldn’t have run the story, while the newspaper maintains it should have (For our editor’s response, see page 16).

The Kevin Graves controversy is a local example of what every news editor struggles with each day. Editors are constantly dealing with an avalanche of information, some of which eventually makes it into print where it’s instantly transformed into what’s called "news."

But how it got there remains mysterious to most readers. It doesn’t need to be. The article is on the page simply because an editor thought it sufficiently important to warrant wider circulation. It’s a judgment call made by someone each day that turns facts into news.

But how do editors make the call? How do they determine what’s news and what isn’t?

In its time, the Daily Express of London was the most widely read newspaper in the world. Its publisher, Lord Beaverbrook, defined news thusly:

"If they want you to print it, it’s propaganda! If they don’t want you to print it, it’s news!"

Lord Beaverbrook’s newsgathering criteria may sound overly simplistic or unduly cynical, but it remains a common approach in many newsrooms today. But unfortunately, the decisions aren’t always that clear.

Here in America, The New York Times has long proclaimed that its pages are filled with "All the News that’s Fit to Print."

What the newspaper thinks is fit and unfit is also unclear, but its famous motto serves to point out the subjective nature of choosing what information gets transformed into news, and what doesn’t.

Naturally, conscientious editors whose goal is presenting objective, impartial, and interesting news to readers always hope their decisions are right.

New Times made the decision to publish the Kevin Graves story. Many people think it was the wrong decision.

Was the furor, as one veteran newsman later observed, "the downside to aggressive journalism in a small community?" Or was it a case of a newspaper publishing something that should rightfully have remained a secret in the interests of individual privacy?

Journalists will continue making decisions for all of us about what they believe has news value. And these decisions will profoundly affect people’s lives, as the current controversy amply demonstrates.

Here are the comments of several editors, reporters, and media experts, both local and national, in answer to the question: Was the Kevin Graves incident a legitimate news story?

KING HARRIS, news director, KCOY-TV

I knew the story was coming out beforehand. We had heard rumors that New Times was planning to print the story. We struggled with it all day long. We had meetings. And I wrote a small piece on what New Times wrote.

The question that kept turning up was, is this a story? Yes, it’s a story. We run stories about priests’ behavior and about other sexual perversions all the time.

At first I was against it. But the more I started thinking about it, the more it was right. It is a story. I just didn’t think the story was for us. I’m not into competing with KSBY in a way that is destructive to the community. As for people trying to find blame with news outlets, there is no blame. Life is life, for crying out loud.

What amazes me is that so many people knew about it and it didn’t get out.

Another question: Should the story have run because of the connection to Sharon Graves? If you are in the media, you’re in the public eye. You lose your privacy.

I personally didn’t like the way The Shredder was handled ("Why you hate us," New Times, Oct. 3). That was really tacky. If you wanted to address this intelligently, I think it was rather crass to present it that way.

But I’m not faulting the messenger. One wonders why the story wasn’t reported in January or March. One is left to wonder how the Tribune didn’t have it then. A lot of people in this business apparently knew about this. A lot of people at KSBY certainly knew about it.

It was an unfortunate incident. Was this the first time Kevin did this? Without talking to the Graveses, you don’t know what happened. There’s too much I don’t know about the whole thing.

Should New Times have printed it? I don’t know. We didn’t because I felt uncomfortable about saying something about someone when the source is another media. But we got chastised by some viewers for not running it.

SANDY DUERR, executive editor, the Tribune, San Luis Obispo

The question is the timing of when you learn of something. We typically do not publish misdemeanors. If a public figure is involved, or if the incident occurred in a public place, then we probably would publish it.

Kevin’s wife, Sharon, is a public figure. He is not. But clearly this was handled in a public venue, so we would have published a brief story inside the local section–had we known of it at the time. But this was a conviction that missed our radar screen.

The incident was nine months old. The conviction was seven months old. That made it quite literally old news, unless it could be proven that the conviction was the reason that Sharon Graves turned in her resignation.

We had no proof of that–and neither Sharon nor Kevin would comment. So we didn’t do the story.

But it is an interesting issue.

It is a judgment call one has to make in terms of policy whenever the decision is made to publish.

NOEL GREENWOOD, retired deputy managing editor and senior editor, Los Angeles Times

At the risk of being flip, it’s a real no-brainer.

What you are experiencing now is the downside of practicing aggressive journalism in a small community. The closer to home it gets, the more difficult and personal it becomes. That’s a familiar place for journalists. You just have to keep your head down and get through it. Obviously, it’s a story about prominent people. But this isn’t even close in my mind. There were criminal charges. They are leaving town.

The whole thing is seen as very personal, and you are seeing the reaction up close. Some news isn’t pleasant, but the reader must deal with it, and you must let the chips fall where they might.

Also, if this person was a producer and he has these proclivities, then one must wonder if he is in a position to color decisions as to what gets on the air–and what doesn’t. It is a job of responsibility with the ability to affect what is broadcast. There is a community interest in this issue.

The people who criticize the decision to run the story are dead wrong. They don’t understand the role of the newspaper. They want things covered that they are interested in. If it doesn’t happen, you are covering up.

MIKE HODGSON, editor, Times Press-Recorder, Arroyo Grande

I would not have run the story. If I had, I would have waited until they left town. To me, there were too many unanswered questions in the story, such as if the people who were witnesses against him had any personal grudges.

Was there evidence that this had happened before? Were children at risk? I would like to have seen a response from Kevin Graves.

Many people plead no contest just because they don’t want to go through a trial or suffer public embarrassment. It’s not always true that people who plead like this are guilty. To my way of thinking, [the Graves’] kids are a factor. The damage that was done outweighed the news story.

BRUCE BRUGMAN, editor and publisher, San Francisco Bay Guardian

It’s very clear that you have a perfect right to do the story, whether or not you have an obligation. It is a reasonable story to do in your community when widely known personalities with a pubic persona and a public constituency are involved.

A key point is that this is a daily [newspaper] story. The fact that you did it is to your credit, because one of the jobs of a good alternative paper is doing the stories that the daily newspapers don’t. This kind of thing is usually the meat-and-potatoes of a daily, so you guys do what the dailies don’t.

The only issue would be how the story was played, and you did that right. It wasn’t a tabloid kind of thing.

You’ve got to let the police in a community know that these kinds of things do not go unreported for any reason–it is so difficult to get reports from police these days. If cops can sit on this report, they can sit on an awful lot of other stuff that ought to be reported on regular basis.

You did a valuable public service, and you did it in a tasteful and professional way. There is much damage done when a community can’t find out what is happening.

RICK JACKOWAY, city editor, the Tribune, San Luis Obispo

(As quoted in the Oct. 13 issue of the ‘Tribune’)

The time that passed made it quite literally old news, unless it could be proven that the conviction was the reason that Sharon Graves had turned in her resignation.

Since we had no proof of that, and the Graveses were not commenting, we decided not to go forward with the story.

DEAN SULLIVAN, publisher, the Bay News, Los Osos

(Mr. Sullivan’s Oct. 13 letter to ‘New Times.’)

First, would a good editor publish the same story if it pertained to Joe Normal Citizen?

Second, would the story be run approximately 10 months after the alleged incident took place and eight months after the case was settled?

And lastly, would a responsible editor allow the reporter to write about that person’s significant other, knowing that he or she had nothing to do with it and that it could serve no purpose but to hurt the innocent party?

Probably not.

This kind of reporting is simple tabloid sensationalism, exactly what New Times is known for and has been doing from the start. So this should be no big surprise to readers, although it isn’t very nice.

This is the kind of thing people pick up grocery store tabloids for, not local newspapers.

The last time I saw a newspaper piss so many people off so quickly was when David Weyrich opened his mouth and destroyed the Gazettes.

ALY COLÓN, member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, St. Petersburg, Fla.

What’s the journalistic purpose for doing a story like this? The first thing that comes to mind in reading the lead is that this is something that happened in March, and now it’s appearing in October. This, of course, raises the question of the newsworthiness of the piece.

Then it goes pretty directly to the facts as stated in the court record, but it leaves out the context of a response from either Kevin or Sharon. There’s nothing to indicate that what Kevin did helped precipitate the family’s move out of SLO County.

It would have been a more compelling, more compassionate article had New Times given the Graveses an opportunity to respond to the charges. The sense of the article is that no one even tried to contact the Graveses. If you did call them, it’s important to let people know this so that it doesn’t appear as though you were out to get someone.

Good newspapers are careful to let their readers know the importance of a story of this magnitude. Explain why it’s important to the community. It might have helped to let your readers know that rumors were flying. When rumors are rampant, we want to get as close to the truth as possible and establish, as accurately as we can, what’s actually going on. In this case, New Times might have held the story until more information was available.

Finally, it’s important for journalists to remember that they’re human first, and reporters second. With the extra care taken to ensure accuracy and fairness in news reports, journalists will be seen as being more humane, more compassionate. There are ways to get the news out without causing unnecessary harm.

BOB SPEER, senior editor, Chico News & Review, Chico

Is this story newsworthy? Absolutely.

Any time you have a public figure–whether politician or TV personality–committing and being convicted of lewd conduct for performing an act of perversion in a public setting, it is newsworthy. That his transgression occurred in the presence of small children makes it even more newsworthy.

I’m sorry for Mr. Graves; he has a problem and needs help. And I’m sorry for his wife and family, too. And I’m sorry that the community has lost a much-liked TV weatherperson.

But to blame New Times is a classic case of killing a messenger that was just doing its job. Where, I wonder, were the other media? They should have been all over this.

The one flaw in the story is that it doesn’t indicate that the Graveses were contacted to get their response. Editor Steve Moss tells me that the Graveses refused to comment and he acknowledges that the paper failed to include that fact in the story.

That’s unfortunate, but it is a correctable oversight and doesn’t take away from the appropriateness of the paper’s publishing the story in the first place.

KEVIN CODY, editor and publisher, Easy Reader, Hermosa Beach

That sort of story does stir things up. Personally, I probably wouldn’t have run it because I’m (dare I admit it?) sympathetic to sexual deviancy.

Take Clinton. What man doesn’t envy a guy who can sneak out of the governor’s mansion after midnight for a quickie, then show up on time for work the next morning? But why guys like that can’t also show restraint–when restraint might save their lives–does puzzle me.

I figure it’s really not an act of free will when you do something suicidal like masturbate in public, or cheat on your wife with an intern when you’re President of the United States. Maybe if Bush would beat off in public, he wouldn’t feel the need to slaughter people. Æ

News editor Daniel Blackburn can be reached at [email protected].




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