| Earlier this month, longtime Hartford Courant consumer columnist George Gombassy was fired, according to him, after the Courant spiked a story he had written about an investigation by the Attorney General's office into the mattress company (and major Courant advertiser) Sleepy's for allegedly selling used mattresses infested with bedbugs as new ones.
Last Friday, Gombassy published the column himself on his new blog, CTWatchdog.com, claiming in an introductory paragraph that:
This was my column, as approved by my editor, that the Courant refused to publish about one of its biggest advertisers. It was scheduled to run on Aug. 2 but was held without an explanation. This was the first time in my 40 years at The Courant that an investigation by the attorney general was withheld from the public.
The firestorm over the firing hit the NY Times a couple of days ago, where Gombassy claimed that he has been under continuous pressure by Courant management not to write stories critical of the Courant's corporate advertisers:
A few months ago, Mr. Gombossy said, he was called into a meeting with Courant executives. He had written columns about a Connecticut contracting company that was also a Courant advertiser. Mr. Levine said that he had received a letter from the contractor about the columns, and asked Mr. Gombossy to meet with the company and to "be nice to them" because an advertising deal was at risk, Mr. Gombossy said.
"At that point, I told them I'm refusing and I said, 'You've got to fire me if you insist on me doing that,' " Mr. Gombossy said. According to him, Mr. Levine then backpedaled on the demand to meet with the advertiser, but said that he could not write about a major advertiser unless it was cleared by Mr. Levine.
Last month, a discrimination complaint filed by reporter Shelly Sindland revealed that Sindland had repeatedly approached management at the Courant's corporate sibling, Fox 61, about her concerns that they had accepted "payment for news stories".
Given all of the above, you might think that an ethically troubled newspaper quickly losing both their remaining credibility and readership would think twice about handing over an entire news article in the midst of the current high-stakes health care debate to health insurance company executives to tout their pristine behavior and honorable intentions with hardly any opportunity given for rebuttal.
You would think wrong.
This was the headline in the Courant yesterday, following a meeting between Aetna executives and Courant reporters and editors, for an alleged news article by reporter Kenneth Gosselin:
Aetna President Decries Health Debate Noise; Claims 'High Road'
And this is the lede:
Town hall forums around the nation have turned nasty over health care reform and the stakes are high for insurers, but Aetna's president said Tuesday that the industry will stay out of the raucous public fray.
Instead, health insurers will continue to push their agenda with state and federal officials and lawmakers, Mark Bertolini, Aetna's No.2 executive, said in a discussion with Courant reporters, editors and editorial writers.
"Insurance companies poll well as the villain," Bertolini said, referring to a blast late last month by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "We sat back in our company, and as an industry, and we said, 'How should we respond to this?'
"We are going to hold to the high road," Bertolini said.
Yes, health insurance companies like Aetna have all been taking the "high road," like having plants join the right-wing mobs attempting to shut down town halls, or actually offering employees talking points to use at town halls on how they can weaken support for a public option.
In fairness, the article is not entirely a gift to Aetna - in the 16th of 18 paragraphs in the story, the executive director of Families USA was given one whole sentence to respond to the previous fifteen paragraphs of what constitutes an Aetna corporate press release. |
MLN is powered by