John Taft, Investigative Reporter Ed/Op

GRANTS PASS, Or (Sept. 19, 02) -- Taft: I’m talking to the editor of Behind The Scenes In Josephine County, Peter Sparacino. Mr. Sparacino, you have a letter up on your website that I saw, and in the letter you told about a press conference that was held by the Josephine County Tax Stoppers. (An organization opposing a taxing district for parks on the November ballot) And in the letter you sent the Grants Pass Daily Courier you told what was said at the press conference and included an excerpt from a flyer that was passed out. Is this correct?

Editor: "It wasn’t an excerpt, it was a complete text of the flyer minus your home phone."

Taft: "Okay and you sent this letter to the Grants Pass Daily Courier."

Editor: "Well, I included it in my letter to the editor that went to the point of selective evaluation of what constitutes important information for the public to know. When often times it is beyond the ability of the editor to make such a judgment and at that time because that same information on a subsequent day might turn out to be the most vital story in the country."

Taft: "Were you referring exclusively to the Daily Courier or to the news media in general?"

Sparacino: "News media in general, because there was a press conference called. Radio and television and print press were all notified, and just Mr. Snook from the Oregon Observer and myself that have any type of press related interest were there. I didn’t see any other, and it really made me curious."

Taft: "When you sent your letter, how many days was it before you became curious and suspected it wasn’t going to be printed?"

Sparacino: "Well, from past experience about a week and a half after submission, I normally get a call from Courier staff making sure I was the one submitting the letter. When there was no such contact and the days kept passing I decided I better call and check, and when I did I was told a hold had been placed on it, and that Mr. Roler wasn’t in on that day. The staff person didn’t want to upset me by trying to explain it, so she thought I best wait to call Mr. Roler and discuss with him personally the following day, which I did."

Taft: "And did Mr. Roler give you a satisfactory explanation for the rejection of the letter?"

Sparacino: "Well, from his point of view he is basically saying that the thrust of my letter seemed to be criticizing Daily Courier internal policy which I didn’t think it did, but he said that internal policy is not up for discussion, period. And that they do sometimes print letters that do address the issue of internal policy and they allow them to be printed because there are other informative information points contained there in that might be useful for the public to know. My letter had no such useful information according to him."

Taft: "Do you believe he (Roler) was referring directly to the Josephine County Tax Stoppers press conference and that he felt that it wasn’t necessary for the public to know that the tax stoppers existed?"

Sparacino: "That’s how I took it, because I had duplicated the text of the flyer which was meant to inform the public of an opposing point of view relative to the coming parks tax vote. I felt that was important for the public to be aware of. And apparently Mr. Roler doesn’t hold that belief."

Taft: "From what you’re saying would it be a reasonable conclusion that the Daily Courier for whatever purpose manipulates local news, and the public only sees the side the editorial staff, the publisher, and owner of the Courier wish presented to the public? Is that fair?"

Sparacino: "Well I think, Yeah, I think that is a fair statement given the years of experience of different events I personally attended that were in fact news events and you know and were not something that would rightly be on the Ed/Op page or Op/Ed page (Opinion/Editorial) and yet the news was not reported to the people. And I felt that that’s a very dangerous policy."