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We wrote yesterday about the virtually unprecedented move by The Denver Post to run a front page editorial bashing Gov. Bill Ritter for signing an executive order on Friday allowing for a partnership agreement with state employees. As we said then, forget the issue for a moment: Running a front page editorial in a major metropolitan newspaper is indefensibly wrong.
As former Denver Post columnist Jim Spencer writes, it seems as though there aren't a lot of happy folks in the Post newsroom over this:
"The language used and the placement demonstrate a certain hysteria that stems from Mr. Singleton's personal dislike of organized labor," Ritter's spokesman, Evan Dreyer, said Sunday.
"I think the degree of the personal attacks is a bit surprising for a newspaper of this caliber. To stoop to this level is unbecoming."
Dreyer said the governor "extended the courtesy" of telling Singleton and Post Editorial Page Editor Dan Haley about the executive order the day before it was issued last Friday.
"It was apparent two minutes into the conversation that Mr. Singleton was not happy," Dreyer said.
Singleton did not return an emailed request for comment Sunday. In an email, Post Editor Greg Moore said, "I don't have anything to do with editorials." Moore declined to discuss the decision to put the editorial on the front page, which is almost always reserved for news.
In an interview Sunday, Haley said he wrote the editorial. He called the decision to do so "a collaborative decision between the publisher and myself." Singleton serves as the Post's publisher and apparently ordered the editorial placed on the front page [Pols emphasis]...
...A source inside the Post newsroom said that most staff members were not aware of the tenor of Sunday's editorial and only learned of its placement late Friday afternoon.
"I didn't have any conversations with anyone about it," said one staffer who asked to remain anonymous. "I heard Greg tell some people it was going on the front page. All I knew was Dean was pissed off. So pissed off that he put an editorial on the front page. Who does he think he is - Hearst?"
The language in the editorial was so raw that the staffer predicted some distress among people in the newsroom.
"You can be opposed to what the governor does," he said. "But this name-calling stuff is embarrassing."[Pols emphasis]
Spencer also notes that Singleton's hatred of unions is well-known and reflected in his past history of newspaper ownership.
Singleton's visceral reaction did not surprise journalism scholar John McManus.
McManus, an author and professor, runs a San Francisco-area media watchdog group called GradetheNews.org. McManus says Singleton's hatred of unions revealed itself in his handling of a series of newspapers he bought recently in the Bay Area.
"He established something called the Alameda News Group for the small papers he owned," McManus said. "ANG papers were unionized."
When Singleton purchased the much larger Contra Costa Times, McManus said, Singleton merged the non-unionized Times staff with the ANG to form the East Bay Area News Group.
"Then," McManus explained, Singleton "said, 'We now have more non-union than union employees. So we will no longer negotiate with the union because it doesn't represent a majority of workers."
So far, that tactic seems to have worked, McManus said.
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