Saturday, April 30, 2005

Pearce's column wasn't his

our views

A letter to the editor in Wednesday's El Defensor Chieftain contends that portions of a recent column we ran from U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce contained passages that were similar to a column by Charli Coon on the Heritage Foundation Web site.

We went to the Web site to check it out and found that our letter writer was being generous. The congressman's column was almost a word-for-word repeat of Coon's column.

The Heritage Foundation is a well-known conservative "think tank," research organization and advocacy group. It is one of the leading suppliers of research and policy experts for conservative members of Congress.

Nothing wrong with that. There are similar think tanks and organizations serving Democrats, Libertarians and every other political stripe, and none of them makes any apology for political bias.

Such groups love to be quoted in the media and by members of Congress because it gives their positions, their research and their organizations legitimacy. No problem there, either.

The problem with the Pearce column is not the ideas expressed or whether the congressman relies on the Heritage Foundation for information and research. The problem is that the column was presented as the congressman's when it was not.

Most members of Congress do not write their own columns. Like most speeches, most congressional columns are produced by staffers, under either explicit directions or general guidelines, and then run by the boss to sign off. We don't know how Pearce's staff works, but this is the norm for most representatives, and the staff is considered an extension of the elected official.

There's a big difference, however, between an original column, even if it is staff-written, and putting the congressman's name on someone else's work.

In the newspaper business, that is the No. 1 sin — automatic termination without discussion. The unwavering rule is, if you are going to use work from another source, you get permission and you attribute the work to the source. None of this was done with the Pearce column.

We are a small paper with a limited staff, so we're limited in our ability to cover congressional issues. We run Rep. Pearce's column, which ironically is called "Straight Talk," to allow the congressman to put his message — unfiltered — before the public.

But we expect it to be his message, not unattributed, copyrighted material reprinted without no acknowledgement of permission.

In all fairness, we have no way of knowing if Pearce was aware of the source of the material. And we don't know if this has happened before, but we can't rule it out. As a result, we have informed Rep. Pearce's press secretary by e-mail of our concerns and that we will not run the congressman's columns any longer without assurance that they are original work. As of yet, we have not received a reply.

To some, this may not seem important, but there are significant legal and ethical questions involved. Equally important, however, we believe his constituents expect the congressman to voice his own thoughts, not parrot someone else's.

El Defensor Chieftain is a politically neutral newspaper. Our goal is to present all views, but we have no desire to become an extension of the Heritage Foundation or any group — liberal, conservative or in-between — advancing its political agenda under the guise of a congressman's commentary.

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