Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990 TAG: 9003162714
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Forrest M. Landon
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
However, the effort to nail Grove Worldwide, with its $12 million payroll and a possible 1,000 jobs, "came close to a screeching halt" last August, the story revealed.
The story alerted other economic-development officials. They began wooing Grove too.
It angered Grove's English owner, Hanson PLC. Grove's 2,000 employees in Pennsylvania wrongly feared loss of their jobs.
And, according to Mark Heath, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Partnership, it gave Grove a new bargaining chip.
So why did we print it - particularly after we had examined just months before the phantom-like growth of Roanoke's economy?
Essentially, because credibility with readers would suffer irreparably if we started suppressing significant information. Four in every five of our readers trust us, surveys reveal. I want to build on that trust - with readers who fear growth and those who favor it.
In selectively deciding what's news, our newsroom makes many subjective decisions - choosing to cover some things and not others.
But we have no hidden agenda. We try to make those judgment calls based what we think will be important or interesting to readers to the extent resources allow. More than three decades ago, shortly after I came to Roanoke, the decision to report or not report identities of known industrial prospects was especially difficult.
At the time, Roanoke's unemployment rate had soared. The railroad had dieselized. The old American Viscose plant had closed.
Back then, secrets were better kept or news coverage was less complete. ITT's arrival got announced when ITT wished it.
Today, community leaders and, for that matter, this paper's opinion page, again worry about economic trends. Predictably, developers again wring hands over "premature" disclosures.
That's not surprising: Early reports of business expansion or relocation pose problems everyw here - whether a host city is fast-growing or in decline. Even when recruiters can't cite evidence of loose lips having actually sunk deals, they're sure it's happened somewhere. And they keep hoping we'll help keep the lid on, if only because prospects always insist on anonymity. Last summer, when we heard somebody wanted the Sav-a-Stop site, we began asking questions.
It was not a rumor. We quickly had Grove's identity nailed. We never considered not publishing it.
(I hope readers know if our report in fact had killed the deal, we would have fully reported that too.)
Personally, I don't want to start deciding which industry is desirable, or when readers should hear about it.
And I doubt if many readers want us deciding that, even ones who are concerned about lost GE or Norfolk Southern jobs.
The plain truth is, we can't abdicate to somebody else the responsibility for what we publish. Nor can we be in cahoots with anyone. People ought to have factual, timely information about anything that affects them, directly or indirectly.
And when industrial development is the topic, the public oft-times needs to be in on decision-making early, not late.i
After all, some industry will want special breaks, some won't. Some might threaten the region's quality of life, some won't.i
Some will pay well, some won't.
Some will treat employees fairly, some won't. Some might need rezoning. That can make somebody rich or poor, and annoy plenty of others.i
Those can be critical issues; they aren't issues to be suppressed because deals might collapse.
But, you might ask, what if the industrial prospect's a Fortune 500 headquarters - one that's eyeing a prezoned industrial park, offering a few thousand jobs and guaranteeing no pollution and no traffic jams?
Would we still tell you, even before a contract got signed?
I've not ever had to make that choice. I can't say what we'd do. But, before making the call, I'd need to be convinced readers wouldn't hear it elsewhere first, or get hurt.
In the meantime, I remain convinced a good newspaper - one, like ours, that for all its faults is at least trying to be serious and enterprising and intelligent in its reporting - ultimately "sells" a good indust rial prospect too.
And I'd like to think somebody at Grove Worldwide sensed that.
by CNB