NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS AND INTEGRITY

Marti Buscaglia, 54, publisher of The Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minnesota since 2002, was slated to be the new publisher at the Orange County Register and Tribune in Santa Ana, California.

That is until it came out that she had misrepresented her educational background. Five previous newspaper employers and at least one recruitment firm failed to check out her background.

“Credibility is a hallmark of Freedom and our products,” N. Christian Anderson III, current publisher of the Register and president and CEO of Freedom Orange County Information, said in a news release. “We agreed that this breach would make it impossible for her to fulfill her responsibilities”

Elsewhere in Minnesota, the publisher of The Minneapolis Star Tribune spent last week in court—his credibility under attack. Par Ridder jumped ship from the St. Paul Pioneer Press where he was publisher and went to the larger cross-town arch rival Star Tribune in March of 2007.

Ridder took two senior managers from St. Paul with him to Minneapolis.

The issues in court were:

Are the noncompete agreements Ridder and the other executives signed when at the Pioneer Press still valid? If they are, the three would be prohibited from working at the Star Tribune for one year. And did Ridder break the law when he took computer files with him from St. Paul to the Star Tribune that contained confidential information about Pioneer Press advertisers, finances, and personnel?

Ridder’s testimony, as reported in the Star Tribune, lacked credibility to this former Secret Service agent and former executive at the Star Tribune (I worked at the Star Tribune from 1976-94 and my dad for 42 years before that). To say he took financial reports to show the formatting to executives at the Star Tribune is just not credible. While he denied using the reports for advertising competitive advantage, he did acknowledge using compensation reports to negotiate the salary of one of the managers he hired away from St. Paul.

Mr. Ridder and his colleagues should have gotten their releases in writing from the Pioneer Press.

Mr. Ridder should have cleaned his laptop and had it verified by Pioneer Press people before he went to Minneapolis. Taking it and then saying he did not use it to harm the Pioneer Press or only used it to show the format of reports is just not credible (any publisher spending his time on report formats is not a publisher). The damage to his credibility was done when he took the information.

A leader’s greatest asset is credibility as Orange County’s Anderson said. Leaders are responsible to create visions for growth and adaptation to the environment before an industry or organizations slides into decline. Leaders in the newspaper industry failed to provide this leadership over the past decade and the industry falls into decline and its leaders lose their credibility a bit every day. Mr. Ridder’s ethics further erode his ability to lead.

Star Tribune business columnist Neal St. Anthony said, “Par Ridder has become the local business ethics case of the year.”

When I left the Star Tribune in 1994, Cowles Media CEO, David Cox, told a group that my leadership in the Circulation Department had changed the company forever. That leadership was based on what we called “value-driven leadership.” Nothing is forever and since that time the Star Tribune has slipped into decline. Mr. Ridder’s actions hasten that decline. He should resign just as Ms. Buscaglia withdrew at Orange County.

In the end it is always all about leadership.