Question about standards of media management

[Martinus]

I am curious if a situation like this (which is happening right now in one of the Polish publishing houses) would be considered controversial (whether or not it would be illegal is another thing) according to the standards considered applicable in your country.

Publishing house X owns a daily and a weekly magazine. They are independent but a lot of pundits publish in both. They have similar political leanings.

Journalist A, who is employed in the daily (but also writes commentaries as a freelancer for the weekly) publishes a highly controversial / politically volatile first page article which proves to be untrue. The journalist's fault is not that he lied, but that he did not properly vet his sources.

Amidst the scandal, the CEO of X fires the chief editor of the daily. The new acting chief editor fires A. 

The CEO of X then demands that the chief editor of the weekly stops publishing anything by A. The chief editor of the weekly refuses. He promptly gets fired.

Which (if any) part of this would be considered to breach the standards of media management/independence in your country.

[derspiess]

I don't see a problem with it.

[merithyn]

I don't see a problem with it.

Same.

[crazy canuck]

Why would this be considered contraversial?  Is it considered bad form to insist on high levels of professionalism in Poland?

[Admiral Yi]

Marty, editors don't get tenure like professors. 

[dps]

So, somebody screwed up and lost his job, and now another branch of the company he worked for doesn't want to do business with him.  What's the problem?

[Jacob]

I think the thing that's causing some furore is that editorial control is expected to be exercised by the Editor, while the CEO is expected to stay out of those kind of decisions and focus primarily on the business side.

The issue isn't that columnist A was fired for what he published in another magazine, but that brute force was applied to the editor on something that is considered to be in his purview. I.e. if the editor had fired him, that's fine; it's that the CEO completely destroyed any editorial independence that's the issue.

... that'd be my guess.

Isn't editorial independence a thing in the US/Canada as well?

[Admiral Yi]

Generally speaking editorial independence is only a thing in the US if the executive suite is clashing with the editor over matters that are in the companies financial interest.  I.e. Disney spikes a story on NBC that blows the lid off Mickey's criminal past.

[Sheilbh]

I think the thing that's causing some furore is that editorial control is expected to be exercised by the Editor, while the CEO is expected to stay out of those kind of decisions and focus primarily on the business side.

Unless there's reputational damage that causes the CEO to have to get involved - closing down NOTW, or, I think, the Independent over Johann Hari.  If a bad choice by a journalist is beginning to cause damage to the business that's not an editorial issue alone.  So the scale matters, if it's a massive fuck up that's damaging the brand then I think it's justified for the CEO to step in.

I've no issue with Marti's hypothetical.

[Martinus]

I think the thing that's causing some furore is that editorial control is expected to be exercised by the Editor, while the CEO is expected to stay out of those kind of decisions and focus primarily on the business side.

The issue isn't that columnist A was fired for what he published in another magazine, but that brute force was applied to the editor on something that is considered to be in his purview. I.e. if the editor had fired him, that's fine; it's that the CEO completely destroyed any editorial independence that's the issue.

... that'd be my guess.

Isn't editorial independence a thing in the US/Canada as well?

Yeah, that's my point (kind of). Mind you, I am not saying this is a breach of standards, but I have doubts. For the record, I am focusing on the second part (firing the chief editor of the weekly for refusing to ban a guy from publishing in the newspaper he oversees) and not the part about firing the chief editor and the journalist from the daily.

[Martinus]

By the way, would you see this differently if both newspapers were not affiliated? So essentially, journalist A is an employee of a newspaper published by company X, but also publishes as a freelance pundit in another newspaper published by company Y.

He screws up in the company X and gets fired from it.

Assuming the chief editor publishing the newspaper in company Y still wants to contract this guy to publish in his newspaper, is the CEO of company Y in his right to fire the chief editor for this?

[Martinus]

By the way, here is a bit of background to this screw-up.

Both newspapers at issue here (the daily and the weekly) took a decisive pro-PiS stance about 6-7 years ago, becoming (at least as far as I am concerned), a vitriolic propaganda tube for the kind of anti-EU, anti-liberal, anti-gay, anti-feminist etc. stuff they spew (so no, I am definitely not biased in their favour).

A couple of years ago the company publishing these newspapers got a new owner, who hired a new chief editor for the daily (with the former chief editor becoming the chief editor of the weekly) with the aim of making the daily more of a business-oriented, right leaning newspaper (with the weekly keeping a more aggressive pundit style).

Both newspapers shared pundits who were kept from the old pro-PiS team. These pundits kept being vitriolicly anti-PO (not to mention everything to the left of it) and claiming that the Smolensk plain crash may have been an assassination attempt. Think people like Glenn Beck etc.

Now, comes one autumn morning and the daily breaks a story on the first page: TRACES OF C4 FOUND IN THE WRECKAGE. The author (journalist A) from my scenario claims he has sources in the attorney general office confirming this.

For 12 hours or so all hell breaks lose, PiS goes on record saying that the prime minister has blood on his hands and whatnot. Then, the attorney general office (btw, an attorney general in Poland is independent from the minister of justice and the government, and answers to the Parliament) organises a press conference saying that they just found ions found in C4, but ones that could also mean anything (e.g. perfurme, air freshner etc.) so this is way too early to draw conclusions.

PiS's popularity plummets by 12 percentage points over a week or so from this. The newspapers credibility (if any) is ruined. The owner/CEO of the newspaper fires the chief editor of the daily and journalist A.

The chief editor of the weekly refuses to stop publishing op pieces by journalist A (where he freelances) and gets fired too.

Hilarity ensues.

[merithyn]

By the way, would you see this differently if both newspapers were not affiliated? So essentially, journalist A is an employee of a newspaper published by company X, but also publishes as a freelance pundit in another newspaper published by company Y.

He screws up in the company X and gets fired from it.

Assuming the chief editor publishing the newspaper in company Y still wants to contract this guy to publish in his newspaper, is the CEO of company Y in his right to fire the chief editor for this?

Yes. It's a standards thing.

The guy outright lied to get a story out there. A journalist only has their reputation for honesty, and once that's gone, well, so is that journalistic integrity. I wouldn't want that person on my staff, either. If the editor won't keep that crap out of my publication, then you can bet that the editor would be just as suspect, imo. That would put him/her on the chopping block as well.

[Sheilbh]

I think in that situation it's entirely fine for the CEO to get involved Marti.

[Grey Fox]

Yes, I have a problem with it. Altho, once the CEO asked & the editor refuse he had no where to go but to either be fired or leave the company.

It's akin to what happened to Monkeybutt.