Labor Dispute at Central Michigan University
Joel Kaplan
September 7, 2011
An ongoing dispute between the faculty and administration at Central Michigan University has led to a complaint against public radio station WCMU by a concerned listener who believes that the radio station has tilted its coverage of the controversy in favor of the administration.
"As a long-time listener of WCMU, I was disappointed to hear your coverage of the dispute between the CMU Faculty Association and university administrators," says the email from David Proctor to WCMU radio director John Sheffler. "Serving as a mouthpiece of the CMU administration is not journalism, it is public relations. CMU Public Broadcasting claims the following as one of its Values: 'We believe an informed public is better equipped to make decisions on the social issues that face our communities.' By presenting the university administration point-of-view in the dispute with the faculty, your coverage has failed to uphold this value. You have an obligation to your listeners to provide more balanced coverage of local events."
Mr. Proctor, who says he has been a listener of WCMU since 2005 when he first moved to Mount Pleasant, Mich. copied me on his email and I agreed to look into his complaint.
Part of his concern was that because Central Michigan is the license holder for both WCMU radio and WCMU television, there was a conflict of interest in covering the dispute.
"I understand that as a university organization, WCMU is faced with conflicting obligations to its listeners and the university," Mr. Proctor wrote to Mr. Sheffler. "I hope you will endeavor to focus on journalism in future coverage of the CMU faculty-administration dispute by providing a voice for the faculty as well as the administration." Mr. Proctor is not a member of the faculty at CMU nor is he affiliated with the university in any way.
Per my request, Mr. Sheffler sent me transcripts of the 22 stories WCMU had done on the dispute between July 18 and August 26 (PDF). During a brief interview, Ed Grant, the general manager of WCMU, said that because of the inherent conflict, the radio station was very careful to be balanced in terms of the coverage of the controversy.
"We've been tracking this thing really closely," Mr. Grant said. "So far there has been five minutes and 42 seconds from the faculty and five minutes and 40 seconds from the administration."
Of course, just because the radio station devoted equal minutes to both sides does not mean the coverage is necessarily balanced. For instance, the coverage could take the position that the administration is correct and the faculty is wrong.
But having reviewed the transcripts of the 22 stories, it seems to me that WCMU has gone out of its way to be objective and balanced in its coverage here. The station made continuing efforts to speak to both faculty union officials as well as university spokesmen. The station covered the issues that were in dispute; the vote by the faculty to authorize its bargaining team to call for a strike as well as the administration's reaction to those issues.
There was nothing in the transcripts where I could see that the radio station was taking one side over the other. Most of what was reported were actions that were taken by one side or the other and then reactions to those actions.
Mr. Sheffler says that perhaps Mr. Proctor complained after listening to two stories that ran on August 22, after the faculty had been out on strike for one day.
That reports said that the one-day strike was temporarily over and that CMU President George Ross spoke to reporters about the walkout. The report quoted President Ross as saying, "Contrary to the misleading statements that came from the President of the FA (Faculty Association), we did not walk away from the bargaining table. At least be honest in the debate and I don't think they have been." Given the tenor of that quote, the radio station did have an obligation to get a response from the faculty association. The report ended with this statement, "CMU public radio news repeatedly contacted the faculty association today to reply to Dr. Ross' charges. But they declined to comment."
According to Mr. Sheffler, "I suspect that Mr. Proctor was reacting to the reports that he heard on Monday, August 22. Our News Department contacted the Faculty Association via phone and email giving them the quote of Dr. Ross and asking them for a reaction. As noted in the script, they declined to comment."
By asking the faculty association for comment, WCMU followed standard journalistic practice in an attempt to be balanced and fair. There is no requirement that the radio station wait until the FA decides to comment or to hold the story until it receives a comment.
In an email to Dr. Proctor on Sept. 1, Mr. Sheffler wrote:
"You are correct about the conflicting obligations to our listeners AND to the university on this matter. That is why we have been so careful with the coverage of this story. We also have to keep in focus the fact that this story primarily impacts listeners in about five of the forty-four counties that we serve; and while this story may be huge to listeners in these five counties, there are stories that are important to the listeners in the other thirty-nine counties that have to be reported on.
"In my review, I looked over the content of the reports and added up the lengths of the quotes that had featured representatives of the Faculty Association verses quotes that featured the university spokesperson. After this review, I have the opinion that we have been even-handed in our coverage.
"At first glance, the one problem that I did perceive with our coverage was on August 22nd. The reports that aired on August 22nd ONLY featured Dr. George Ross, President of Central Michigan University. When I spoke with our News Department about that, I was informed that the Faculty Association had been contacted by phone and via email with Dr. Ross' quote and were asked to respond. The Faculty Association representative declined to respond. The reporters included a statement in the final line of their report that noted "CMU Public Radio News contacted the Faculty Association today to reply to Dr. Ross' charges but they declined to comment." So, in the end, I can say that I am comfortable with the reports on the 22nd as well. "
In a follow-up correspondence with Mr. Proctor, he said that the report that originally caught his attention was indeed the August 22 one. "The lack of a statement by the Faculty Association was apparently the cause of my upset as opposed to any imbalance in the coverage," he said.
I agree with Mr. Sheffler. I believe their coverage has been objective, fair and balanced. Feel free to listen to the reports or read the transcripts and come to your own conclusions.
But I would like to add one thing about transparency. If a listener were to only hear the August 22 report, one might get the impression that the station was taking the position of the administration and only giving lip service to the faculty.
But if one were to listen to all 22 reports, the impression would be that the station covered this story following proper journalistic standards of objectivity, balance and fairness.
What public radio stations like WCMU need to do is make all of the news reports or various topics readily available to the public on its website. WCMU does archive all of its over the air news reports. This is a valuable service, though the reports are in reverse chronological order based on the date of the broadcast. They are not listed based on subject matter, which would be more helpful on a story like this that has run over two months.
In addition, going to the archives site forces the public to actually listen to all the reports.
What would be more helpful—and more transparent—would be for WCMU to also publish transcripts on its website like those they provided to me for my review. Such transcripts would enable the public to view every story that has run in an easily readable format.
The radio station does list some of its reports on its website. But it is listed under generic headlines like Education (132 stories) or Economy (181 stories). Some of the CMU articles are included under Education, but not all of them. In a case like this, the CMU labor dispute should have its own separate category and all transcripts should be available for reading there.
