Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
RON MATUSA series of pollution stories never mentioned a former plant manager is married to the editor.
TAMPA - Since mid July, the Tampa Tribune has published more than 30 stories - nearly half of them on its front page - about the Coronet Industries factory in Plant City.
Its reporters have detailed the plant's checkered environmental record, recounted heart-wrenching tales of cancer victims who blame Coronet's pollution for their illnesses, and interviewed former employees who say company managers told them to illegally dump toxic materials.
And yet, in all that coverage, the Tribune has failed to disclose one head-scratching fact: Its top editor is married to a man who was a manager at Coronet - until he was laid off last year.
James Reed, husband of Tribune managing editor Donna Reed, left Coronet in 2002 after 24 years of service. He was Coronet's manager of plant logistics and manpower planning.
Donna Reed doesn't see a problem with the newspaper's readers not knowing that. Neither does Tribune publisher Gil Thelen.
James Reed was "never a source for the story or in any way involved in the reporting of the story," Thelen said Tuesday. "To say we were tough on Coronet because Jim used to work there is a real stretch."
Thelen said he and Reed never even discussed the possibility of disclosing the connection because "neither she nor I thought her husband's past employment had anything to do with this."
Some media ethicists, when told the details of the situation, said even if there isn't a conflict, there is the perception of one, and that's reason enough for the Tribune to point out the ties.
"My response would be: Why not lay that out?" said Ralph Barney, a retired Brigham Young University communications professor who edits the Journal of Mass Media Ethics. "It may very well be that the audience would say, "There's not a problem here."'
But let the readers decide, he said.
James Reed, 51, left Coronet last year in a round of corporate downsizing. He told the Times his duties included disciplinary matters and scheduling, not environmental compliance, and that he was relieved to lose his job.
"I was tired," he said. "I wanted to do something different."
Both he and his wife denied contributing any information about the plant to the Tribune's coverage.
"This is a public health story that the citizens broke," Donna Reed said. "I had nothing to do with it."
Reed said she has not edited any of the Coronet stories, but did play a role in deciding where they would appear in the newspaper.
"If we erred, we erred," she said. But "just good old gumshoe reporting" shaped the stories, she added, not her husband's job at Coronet.
Pollution concerns around the Coronet plant, which turns phosphate into a supplement for animal feed, long preceded the Tribune's coverage. After Plant City resident Johnnie Cooper wrote federal officials last year about community health concerns, Florida health officials were ordered to take a look.
They submitted an eight-page report in June that echoed, but did not attempt to validate, what residents had been saying for years: Pollution from Coronet is causing an epidemic of cancers and development disorders. Federal officials saw enough to order a yearlong investigation, which is now under way.
Since then, Coronet has become one of the Tribune's biggest stories of the year. Among the front page stories: a July 15 report about residents objecting to a proposed 2,600-home subdivision near the Coronet property. The Tribune used part of one resident's quote for the headline: "Matter of life and death," it declared.
Amid the emotional outpouring, health and environmental officials are researching the situation, and say that so far there is no evidence to support residents' fears. Cancer rates in the ZIP codes closest to the plant are about the same as the state average. And even though a host of pollutants have turned up in private wells, they are not at levels likely to make people sick, the officials say.
Still, authorities have resisted making more definitive statements, knowing that other bits of evidence are still rolling in, and that people are truly worried.
The Tribune coverage has been notable at times for its omission of what would appear to be key information.
In a front-page story Sept. 18, for example, it reported that officials had found elevated levels of pollutants in another 10 wells near Coronet, bringing the total to 20. The headline: "More Wells Unsafe Near Coronet Plant."
But the Tribune didn't mention that authorities were relieved by the findings, not bemoaning a widening fiasco. The latest well checks revealed that the elevated pollutants were isolated in two small areas, and even then in levels not high enough to be a major problem. Translation: The water does not appear to be sickening the community.
The results are "more reassuring than they are alarming," said Doug Holt, Hillsborough County health director, in a conference call with reporters.
The Tribune did not mention Holt's preliminary conclusion.
Coronet officials declined to comment on the Tribune's coverage and the James Reed connection. They also would not discuss Reed's employment.
One media ethicist said disclosing the connection publicly would have beefed up the Tribune's stories, not called them into question.
"The more transparent a news organization can be, the more credibility" it will have, said Louis Hodges, the Knight Professor of Ethics in Journalism at Washington & Lee University in Virginia.
- Ron Matus can be reached at 813 226-3405 or matus@sptimes.com Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.