The Poynter Institute’s Jim Romenesko has several links to the Amy Ruiz story on the institute’s blog this morning, linking to the Mercury‘s, the Willamette Week‘s and the Oregonian‘s coverage, including an opinion piece by Tom Killian:

What about Adams hiring a reporter named Amy Ruiz from The Mercury into the Office of Sustainability? Ruiz openly admits she has zero experience. Was this a thank you from Sam Adams for the Mercury burying the story months ago? Probably.

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The Poynter Institute is a national authority on journalistic ethics.

Matt Davis was news editor of the Mercury from 2009 to May 2010.

13 replies on “Ruiz Story Hits Poynter Institute”

  1. Honestly, even setting aside the “hush job” suggestion, the move to City Hall already contained some journalistic ethics no-nos.

    First, every single story about the City that Amy wrote for the Merc while applying for a City job should have carried a disclaimer that she was doing so.

    Second, if a scandal hits or comes to light after a journalist switches to government, this sort of appearance of impropriety is an inevitability — which should serve as a warning flag for any governmental body seeking to hire a journalist and any journalist seeking to switch to government.

  2. What consenting adults do alone is entirely their business and not ours. Regardless of who they are. If Breedlove was of age, mind your own business, you silly prudes.

    As the world of print journalism slowly collapses, it will be the young, the connected, those without offspring, those willing to travel, those able to bargain their favors and social network, who will be seen as most juicy by both government and corporate public relations administrators. They will be snapped up at bargain prices.

    So like the 30 or so of Ruiz’ NW colleagues who have recently jumped ship (as ably cataloged by Kari at BlueOregon last week), her crossover hiring comes actually ahead of more experienced PR pros; the gray beards and Post-Intelligencer vets need not apply. And because her tasks were not to define or develop policy, but simply decrypting Sam’s gigantic plan and rolling it out repeatedly for the pleebs, I see no harm in Tom Miller’s hiring of Amy.

    The ethical problem is wholly Amy’s, and is attached also to Scott Moore and to Steve Humphrey.

    What did they know and when did they know it? Did they hold the story, wink wink, expecting favors? Did they not know how to write the story, prior to the election, sans sources? Did Nigel Jaquiss, again, break the story no other journalist was willing to touch?

  3. The ethical problem is not wholly Amy’s, because the question of ethics in journalism is not merely a private concern, but a public one.

  4. Admittedly, I have nothing to base this on, but I suspect Amy didn’t think this was an ethical problem. There are many former journalists working in politics and she probably just thought this was a good opportunity.

    That said, Sam’s motives are most definitely suspect.

    The Mercury, and Amy in particular, had a growing reputation as the only media outlet that really gave close scrutiny to City Hall (at least since The One True b!X stopped publishing). Although the bigger papers would never admit it, the Mercury’s coverage forced them to do more in their own coverage.

    Amy may indeed have been hired in an attempt to kill the Beau story, but I have to wonder if the motive wasn’t really to kill a whole lot of other stories too.

    For instance, Amy and the Mercury were the only outlet in town giving serious coverage to the ongoing Soccer/Baseball Task Force. When Amy got her job, all reporting on that issue stopped, not just in the Mercury but everywhere else too.

    Perhaps there are other stories too?

    -E

  7. “Probably.” What a load of crap. Has this guy read all of Amy’s reporting about City Hall? If that wasn’t analysis, I don’t know what is. It was damn good reporting and we all are at a loss without her still writing for the Merc, but at least she went someplace where she can continue to do some good for the City (presuming she doesn’t go down in this Puritanical witch hunt).

    Also, it sounds like Tom Kilian wrote from his moralistic attitude instead of the facts, because I read Amy’s application, and the other reporting on it, and his line that she admitted she has “zero experience” is also complete crap.

  9. um…if the purpose of the job, as these people describe it, is to communicate Sam’s vision to the bureaus and the public, then how exactly does someone who claims to have been critical of his vision become a good “fit?” If it were some kind of technocrat job, then it would make sense to have someone in there who disagreed with the mayor. But they went on about how the job is about “translating” his vision, not doing analysis and being critical.

  11. Logic, when you leave journalism you are no longer a journalist. You switch off critical analysis and do your job. The fact that Ruiz was critical of Adams on some points doesn’t overrule that fact of life.

    I’m increasingly convinced that Amy J. is collateral damage in all this. I have faith in her intentions and her integrity. Her judgment, however, was spotty, at least if she had any thoughts about returning to journalism some day.

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