I love nothing better than people pulling themselves up by the bootstraps while facing adversity and still pushing forward.
When I read online posts by staff members at the soon-to-be-defunct Derrick and News-Herald, where I once proudly worked, saying they were going continue on as an online news outlet I was thrilled.
I literally said out loud to my computer... "good for them."
From online comments, it is obvious people are excited that a portion of The Derrick legacy will continue.
When the official announcement hit the newsstand on February 20, I had a much different reaction and some very serious questions.
A lot of them.
At first the article mentioned TheDerrick.com would continue after the physical printing of the newspaper would cease on March 20.
It stated they would be working in collaboration with the non-profit Oil Region Alliance, which is an agency funded, in part through government grants and which is involved in dozens of projects The Derrick and other independent news outlets report on regularly.
Reporting that can investigate, when necessary, the actions of the agency and what impact, positive or negative, their projects have on the community. Reporting that should be through an unbiased, independent eye. That's journalism.
As I read the article. my ethics 101 red flag radar began dinging like a impatient hungry customer at an unmanned deli counter.
I have a lot of questions.
First, who wrote the article? It had no byline or attribution. This is odd for this newspaper. No "staff reports" that would indicate it was a press release vetted for authenticity, then edited into a readable story for the paper. Since it didn't have a byline, it implies it wasn't written by a specific staff member. It contained no editor's note. It contained the word "we". This is strange.
Was the source of this article the ORA, the Derrick Publishing Company, both, or was it a a staff writer, without the usual byline?
What about the obvious journalistic conflicts of interests and ethical dilemmas that will arise with such a partnership?
The article addressed all the positive aspects of keeping a reliable legacy news source, but none of the ethical shortcomings of a union between a media outlet and an organization it frequently reports on. The article also failed to address what the organizational structure will be. This made me wonder how the TheDerrick.com editing team will handle news from the ORA if they are under its umbrella.
A brief email exchange with The Derrick publisher Paul Hess didn't clarify much. He stated “The (February 20) article says it all at this point. All the details are being worked out.” We played a bit of phone tag that day and he told me if I needed answers to my questions to call John Phillips, president and CEO of the ORA.
Fair enough.
Around the same time, Phillips replied to an email I sent earlier.
My questions on how the ORA or the participating Derrick employees are getting the rights to continue as TheDerrick.com and if the paper's archives would be part of the deal were defered by Phillips due to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) between the parties involved.
Understandable.
To answer my question about what structure will look like, Phillips indicated he envisions the paper would function akin to the Oil City Main Street Program for which the ORA serves as a fiscal agent. If this will be their arrangement then who will be the owners of The Derrick.com? This is important information. Because it begs the question who will be in charge of the news, in particular the news surrounding the ORA?
I really have a lot of questions.
Will TheDerrick.com be its own non-profit? Will it have a separate board of directors from the ORA and will the ORA have any say in directing news content, hiring and firing of TheDerrick.com employees or who does and does not advertise on website?
Will the reporters and editors feel the freedom to ask questions about the actions of the ORA and its projects? Will they feel hindered from receiving or pursuing information or topics not necessarily favorable to the ORA?
Just to be clear, non-profit journalism is growing more common with new media outlets - so on the surface this sounds like a good possible solution to many.
Spotlight PA is the first that comes to mind. This independent, non-profit news organization rose up to take the mantel of investigative journalism throughout the commonwealth in 2019.
The key word here is independent. They are not under the umbrella of another organization that funds projects of public concern.
I'm not trying to be curmudgeony and certainly do not want to see this effort by the staffers at TheDerrick.com to fail. Their continuation is a good thing and perhaps essential to Venango County news gathering.
But the sheer volume of stories involving the ORA each year means the conflicts of interest are a very serious concern of jounralistic ethics. That has yet to be addressed. A quick use of current TheDerrick.com search option pulls up more than 1,700 items in which the ORA has been at least mentioned since 2014.
That’s a fair amount of stories. Many stem from ORA press releases or follow ups to those releases. Other stories are updates of their long-term projects, involvement in community events and other collaborations.
Which brings me to another question with obvious interests to Eight & 322. How will the ORA move forward with issuing information, press releases and answering other news sources' inqueris?
It is a concern given that in The Derrick's article on February 20 where it was attributed to Phillips and Debbie Sobina, the ORA’s vice president that “…they and their ORA staff are dedicated to assuring the Oil Region’s only reliable source of news will be serving the community for a long time.” Calling them the "only reliable news source" indicates they don't necessarily trust other area news outlets. Phillips said the ORA did not write the article nor did they review it before it was published. He also said the ORA will not show favoritism to TheDerrick.com over the other local news sources.
I certainly hope this is true and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. And, as pointed out in the first column of this series, there are a number of news sources that serve the oil region.
Lastly, as stated prior, the ORA gets funding through the government, including the county hotel tax. And their projects directly effect local municipalities - all things the newspaper reports. There are also elected government officials on the ORA board.
Ethical journalism goes out of its way to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest.
How does TheDerrrick.com plan to maintain impartiality and its standing as a watchdog while under the umbrella for an organization with so many connections to local government?
So in summary: Is the ORA going to be the overseer and give directions to the news website? Is investigative journalism of government grants and community projects handled by the ORA, when needed, going to be possible under this arrangement? Will the TheDerrick.com be independent of the rest of the ORA’s operations? And to reiterate, how separate can they be if payroll and finances are handled under the ORA’s umbrella? Can any newspaper, online or print, be truly independent if they are governed by a major subject of their reporting?
As I said I have a lot of questions and though this may sound as if I am hoping for failure of this venture, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I fear for any community that loses its newspaper. I understand the times they are a changin’. All the more reason to be diligent in how we go about reporting the news.
Read the first column in this series here: https://www.8and322.com/editorial/editorial-the-changing-landscape-of-oil-region-journalism
When I read online posts by staff members at the soon-to-be-defunct Derrick and News-Herald, where I once proudly worked, saying they were going continue on as an online news outlet I was thrilled.
I literally said out loud to my computer... "good for them."
From online comments, it is obvious people are excited that a portion of The Derrick legacy will continue.
When the official announcement hit the newsstand on February 20, I had a much different reaction and some very serious questions.
A lot of them.
At first the article mentioned TheDerrick.com would continue after the physical printing of the newspaper would cease on March 20.
It stated they would be working in collaboration with the non-profit Oil Region Alliance, which is an agency funded, in part through government grants and which is involved in dozens of projects The Derrick and other independent news outlets report on regularly.
Reporting that can investigate, when necessary, the actions of the agency and what impact, positive or negative, their projects have on the community. Reporting that should be through an unbiased, independent eye. That's journalism.
As I read the article. my ethics 101 red flag radar began dinging like a impatient hungry customer at an unmanned deli counter.
I have a lot of questions.
First, who wrote the article? It had no byline or attribution. This is odd for this newspaper. No "staff reports" that would indicate it was a press release vetted for authenticity, then edited into a readable story for the paper. Since it didn't have a byline, it implies it wasn't written by a specific staff member. It contained no editor's note. It contained the word "we". This is strange.
Was the source of this article the ORA, the Derrick Publishing Company, both, or was it a a staff writer, without the usual byline?
What about the obvious journalistic conflicts of interests and ethical dilemmas that will arise with such a partnership?
The article addressed all the positive aspects of keeping a reliable legacy news source, but none of the ethical shortcomings of a union between a media outlet and an organization it frequently reports on. The article also failed to address what the organizational structure will be. This made me wonder how the TheDerrick.com editing team will handle news from the ORA if they are under its umbrella.
A brief email exchange with The Derrick publisher Paul Hess didn't clarify much. He stated “The (February 20) article says it all at this point. All the details are being worked out.” We played a bit of phone tag that day and he told me if I needed answers to my questions to call John Phillips, president and CEO of the ORA.
Fair enough.
Around the same time, Phillips replied to an email I sent earlier.
My questions on how the ORA or the participating Derrick employees are getting the rights to continue as TheDerrick.com and if the paper's archives would be part of the deal were defered by Phillips due to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) between the parties involved.
Understandable.
To answer my question about what structure will look like, Phillips indicated he envisions the paper would function akin to the Oil City Main Street Program for which the ORA serves as a fiscal agent. If this will be their arrangement then who will be the owners of The Derrick.com? This is important information. Because it begs the question who will be in charge of the news, in particular the news surrounding the ORA?
I really have a lot of questions.
Will TheDerrick.com be its own non-profit? Will it have a separate board of directors from the ORA and will the ORA have any say in directing news content, hiring and firing of TheDerrick.com employees or who does and does not advertise on website?
Will the reporters and editors feel the freedom to ask questions about the actions of the ORA and its projects? Will they feel hindered from receiving or pursuing information or topics not necessarily favorable to the ORA?
Just to be clear, non-profit journalism is growing more common with new media outlets - so on the surface this sounds like a good possible solution to many.
Spotlight PA is the first that comes to mind. This independent, non-profit news organization rose up to take the mantel of investigative journalism throughout the commonwealth in 2019.
The key word here is independent. They are not under the umbrella of another organization that funds projects of public concern.
I'm not trying to be curmudgeony and certainly do not want to see this effort by the staffers at TheDerrick.com to fail. Their continuation is a good thing and perhaps essential to Venango County news gathering.
But the sheer volume of stories involving the ORA each year means the conflicts of interest are a very serious concern of jounralistic ethics. That has yet to be addressed. A quick use of current TheDerrick.com search option pulls up more than 1,700 items in which the ORA has been at least mentioned since 2014.
That’s a fair amount of stories. Many stem from ORA press releases or follow ups to those releases. Other stories are updates of their long-term projects, involvement in community events and other collaborations.
Which brings me to another question with obvious interests to Eight & 322. How will the ORA move forward with issuing information, press releases and answering other news sources' inqueris?
It is a concern given that in The Derrick's article on February 20 where it was attributed to Phillips and Debbie Sobina, the ORA’s vice president that “…they and their ORA staff are dedicated to assuring the Oil Region’s only reliable source of news will be serving the community for a long time.” Calling them the "only reliable news source" indicates they don't necessarily trust other area news outlets. Phillips said the ORA did not write the article nor did they review it before it was published. He also said the ORA will not show favoritism to TheDerrick.com over the other local news sources.
I certainly hope this is true and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. And, as pointed out in the first column of this series, there are a number of news sources that serve the oil region.
Lastly, as stated prior, the ORA gets funding through the government, including the county hotel tax. And their projects directly effect local municipalities - all things the newspaper reports. There are also elected government officials on the ORA board.
Ethical journalism goes out of its way to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest.
How does TheDerrrick.com plan to maintain impartiality and its standing as a watchdog while under the umbrella for an organization with so many connections to local government?
So in summary: Is the ORA going to be the overseer and give directions to the news website? Is investigative journalism of government grants and community projects handled by the ORA, when needed, going to be possible under this arrangement? Will the TheDerrick.com be independent of the rest of the ORA’s operations? And to reiterate, how separate can they be if payroll and finances are handled under the ORA’s umbrella? Can any newspaper, online or print, be truly independent if they are governed by a major subject of their reporting?
As I said I have a lot of questions and though this may sound as if I am hoping for failure of this venture, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I fear for any community that loses its newspaper. I understand the times they are a changin’. All the more reason to be diligent in how we go about reporting the news.
Read the first column in this series here: https://www.8and322.com/editorial/editorial-the-changing-landscape-of-oil-region-journalism
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