Minneapolis (Sept. 23, 2005) - The Minnesota News Council has denied three complaints by Prior Lake’s former mayor and two city council colleagues against the Prior Lake American newspaper.

The complaints grew out of news articles and editorial comments about the former officials, who the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled had violated the state’s open meeting law.

Former Mayor Wes Mader and council colleagues Mike Gundlach and Jim Ericson contended that the newspaper had published false statements that it had never sought to recover legal fees and have fines imposed on them in the lawsuit that reached the supreme court. They also complained that the American showed bias against them by portraying their executive session in 2000 as a “secret meeting” and the current city council’s more recent executive session as a “closed session.”

The News Council voted 11-6 and 13-3 for the newspaper on the two complaints concerning legal fees and fines, and 15-2 for the paper on the complaint about bias.

Publisher Laurie Hartmann wrote in an April 2005 editorial column that the newspaper had never sought fees and fines against the three officials. Mader pointed to official court documents that said the paper did seek such remedies.

The American’s attorney, Mark Anfinson, persuaded the News Council majority that the paper’s request for fees and fines was a technical filing that the newspaper never pursued when the case was resolved. Hartmann said that she could have phrased her column differently, to make it clearer that the paper never filed a motion in the end for fees and fines.

Public member Jon Austin, a public relations specialist, said, “Words are not used precisely in conventional conversation or in editorials. You can take the column to mean, ‘We never did intend to seek damages.’”

News Council member Pat Berg, a journalism instructor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, asked, “What is more important for a community newspaper: to be precise in what it means by ‘never’ or to hold public officials accountable? The far greater good is that the news media hold officials’ feet to the fire, and if the media make a mistake once in a while, well, democracy is messy.”

As to bias, Mader objected to what he called the newspaper’s treatment of the current city council’s conduct of an executive session, compared with the paper’s treatment of his council’s decision. He said his council voted to close a meeting to consider a threat of litigation against the city. The current council, he said, closed a meeting without taking a vote, facing no threat of litigation. Hartmann said the newspaper has also objected to the recent closed session.

Susan Ihne, editor of the St. Cloud Times, applauded the American’s position: “They pursued an illegal closing the first time [in Mader’s case], and they’re pursuing it the second time. They are protecting the First Amendment.”

Mader said, “Considering the freedom and independence that newspapers have been given, there should be some accountability not to abuse that privileged position.”

Mader also complained that the newspaper has repeatedly relied upon a disputed deposition in the lawsuit as factual when many other participants in the executive session, Mader said, signed affidavits challenging the allegations of the deponent, former councilman Peter Schenck.

Schenck said that the city attorney had advised Mader and his colleagues not to go into executive session. Mader said about 10 people who signed affidavits denied that. He also objected to the publisher’s referring to what she called “cover-ups” in connection with the violation of the open meeting law, recalling the Watergate scandal.

Public member Karen Runyon, a forensics specialist, said, “I’m always uncomfortable when I read something that is someone’s personal opinion. The word that comes to my mind is ‘snarky’ [meaning irritable or short-tempered]— I can see why someone would feel it was biased.”

Media member Karen Boros, a journalism teacher at the University of St. Thomas, said that the opinion pages are the right place for writers to sell their views to the reader: “There’s snarkiness on both sides. I have no problem with ‘secret meeting’ being in a signed column.”

Publisher Hartmann told the News Council that a newspaper should have wide latitude to express its opinions and to publish the opinions of citizens and public officials. She said Mader’s administration had given her reason to be harshly critical, and she pointed out that Mader had been given space 17 times to express his opinion in the American’s editorial pages.

Mader asked why the paper had published a letter to the editor without verifying a charge that he had voted himself a 50 percent increase in pay. He said it was not true and that the editor should not have run the letter without knowing if it were.

News Council member Jay Furst, managing editor of the Rochester Post-Bulletin, asked Mader if he had asked the newspaper to run corrections on the mistaken letter and on the publisher’s comment that the paper had “never” sought fees and fines. Mader said he had not asked for corrections, but preferred to write letters to the editor for publication. Not all his letters were published.

The News Council, an independent nonprofit agency founded in 1970, has upheld half the complaints it has heard, and denied half. Its 24 members — 12 journalists and 12 lay persons — represent only themselves.