3/4 - Paul Parker Summary, Alyssa Carroll (Aaron Roy)

Seminar Speaker: Paul Parker
Notes by Alyssa Carroll
Discussion Leader: Aaron Roy



Changing gears significantly from speaker Eric Danton, speaker and investigative reporter Paul Parker presented a new facet of journalism, focusing on changes to his investigative field and the coverage of the Providence nightclub fire.

Aaron began his portion of the discussion, by bringing up the notion that journalists, like Parker, sometimes have to exclude information from pieces for fear of upsetting the state legislature and having exemptions put on the information available to them. He questioned whether the role of journalists as watchdogs was hampered by this, and whether this exclusion of legally available information for fear of future censorship boded well for the future of journalism.

Though this first question was a strong and relevant way to begin, it was met by silence and metaphoric chirping of crickets. The question was further clarified by Professor Dufresne, explaining the idea of watchdog journalists being tentative of pushing the state too far in certain cases, afraid of having legislature change, and whether that was an appropriate strategy.

Eli explained that this symbiotic relationship is a give and take deal, focusing on how vital the information is and whether a journalist can leave some information out if it is going to compromise information gathering in the future.

Emily felt more strongly, remarking that if a journalist needs information for a story they must push for it and not be afraid of repercussion.

Aaron took the discussion reigns again here, and changed topics slightly. Aaron questioned the notion of printing of corporate salaries and information as well as the accountability of not printing them.

This related to Parker’s HuskyCT airport salary piece overall, but more strongly correlated to his example of the secretary who had suffered from spousal abuse and didn’t want her job and salary to be public for fear of repercussion.

This question ignited a good amount of debate and discussion, beginning with Kate’s comment that the information is public, thus giving the public a right to it. However, she explained that in certain situations (like Parker’s example of the police who didn’t want their home address available to the “crackpot” who was looking for them) that there should be exceptions, and that the journalists need to be responsible in thinking about potential harm before publication.

On the topic of the secretary who had been abused, Erin said that she was surprised about Parker’s dedication to print the information. Erin retracted her comment though, once it was explained that the secretary’s job information was already available online, should her husband and potential abuser be interested in ‘Googling’ her.

Professor Dufresne took this opportunity to have the class put himself or herself in the position of the professional journalist, and to ask themself about what could happen if the information was published. He explained that one must always consider the worst-case scenarios, and that it is a balancing act all of the time. The decision to knowingly cause any harm must be a compelling one.

Britton agreed, but differed slightly in her feelings of harm. She explained that it is not the job of the journalist to protect, and in the case of the secretary that it made sense to publish her name. She felt as though this was not exploitation, but rather a presentation of information that had already been made public.

Eli agreed, saying that if the taxpayer’s money is paying for the secretary’s salary than they should be able to publish her information publicly.

These sentiments echoed the rationale of Parker, who explained that the secretary was hired by the state, the state that is funded by its public, and therefore the public was in a sense her employer and had a right to the information.

Aaron quoted Parker, in saying “Without access, accountability suffers.”

Amy brought up the SPJ (Society of Professional Journalists) code, saying that it is the ethical and moral responsibility of journalists to minimize harm, but agreed that in the specific case of the secretary that Parker and his associates had done the right thing.

Aaron again changed gears here, turning focus away from harm and accountability to changes in the investigative reporting field. Aaron discussed how the investigative department had been distilled into five teams, and whether certain stories would fall between the cracks when it didn’t qualify into one of the distinct beats or genres of the teams.

This related back to Parker’s comments on how many people are unsure of who to turn or report to when they have story tips or ideas that they think belong in the paper. The genres of the investigative teams are broad, and overlapping does occur so he believed that there was room for stories to perhaps go overlooked.

One student said that she believed that the issue was not with stories going unreported, but was instead more of an issue of which department should get the story and how people could be informed so that they report stories to the appropriate departments, as the beats are currently so broad.
Scott brought up the idea, that perhaps the teams were separated by their professional backgrounds and knowledge breadth, giving more validity to the separation of investigative reporting as well as the caliber of the information presented.

Beren didn’t believe that the team separation would hurt reporting, and instead thought that in the failing economy it made more financial sense to have to teams split for maximum efficiency. The problem, he believed, was more deciding who would get the story when a tip was given.
Jesse concluded the discussion, explaining and agreeing with others that the overlap between the teams could create conflict of ownership and placement of stories. He among others believed that the only true remedy to the team-system flaw was a good means of communication between them.

The majority of the takeaway cards focused on the role of technology in journalism, as Parker had heavily focused on this. Among this vein, were comments on computer assisted reporting, the decline of print news, the trend towards online journalism, and the innovations that technology has lent us like in the nightclub fire simulation. However, a few focused more on Parker’s emphasis that the survival of news is dependent on the hyper-localization of hometown news and the treatment of post-tragedy sources.

Scott Powell: Paul Parker and the Providence Journal seem to be pretty innovative as a newspaper, with the use of computer software programs and their investigative reporting

Stephen Ortiz: If newspapers never went online, would we [newspapers] be in such a decline?

Mike Northup: Computers can be an extremely useful tool for investigative journalists in terms of compiling and analyzing data.

Rowan McInnes: I didn’t know much about the station fire until today, and I thought it was interesting how computer software nowadays can be used to get better understanding of what happened during such a tragic event.

Chase Carnot: Bigger papers and those based on the corporate (quarterly profit) model, will not be around in a decade or two. Small local papers will always be needed.

Katie Bushey: Obviously an extremely thorough reporter.

Joe Callahan:
• Computer Assisted reporting
• If local newspapers die, news dies
• Providence Journal now has five teams of reporters

Alex Sanders: I have always wondered if it would be difficult to talk to someone after a tragedy, and I found it very interesting that he said it is easiest to talk to people right after the event occurs. I would think that people would open up more with time.

Kate Monohan: I’m not sure that I agree that salaries for the state workers should be published online with names. The case of the abusive husband showed that there are exceptions that need consideration to the F.O.I.