The Providence Journal had a front page story today on the budget proposal Governor Chafee will unveil, tonight, in his "State of the State" address.
A leaked budget proposal is not unprecedented. But the story has angered some in the State House press corps, who accuse the Journal of breaking what is known, in the biz, as an "embargo" and unfairly beating them to the punch on the story.
Here's how an embargo works: a newsmaker, in this case the governor's office, gives reporters advance access to information, so they can digest it, in exchange for a promise not to publish it until an appointed time. Here, that appointed time was the start of Chafee's "State of the State."
Press corps sources say the embargoed information went to the ProJo's State House bureau chief, Kathy Gregg, last week. It was another ProJo reporter, Randy Edgar, who wrote the article that appeared in today's paper, citing not the embargoed documents, but unnamed lawmakers briefed on the governor's budget.
Gregg declined to comment and Edgar did not return an email asking for comment. But press corps sources familiar with the ProJo's position say it goes something like this: Edgar did not get the embargoed material, and therefore, was not subject to the embargo. Indeed, the argument goes, he gleaned his information not from the embargoed documents but from lawmakers - just as any other enterprising reporter might have done.
There is, it should be said here, no evidence that Gregg shared embargoed materials with Edgar.
Still, the story didn't sit well with some in the State House press corps. They were holding back on the budget story and they believed the ProJo would, too. The frustration came to a head last night at a budget briefing for reporters - attended by Gregg, but not Edgar.
By then, the ProJo had put a blog post on its web site, previewing the front page story that would run today. And according to people in the room, Chafee's press secretary Chris Hunsinger voiced disappointment that some of the details of the budget were already in the media. A couple of non-ProJo reporters then suggested their own frustration with the situation, creating some tense moments.
Hunsinger declined to comment, today, on whether she believed the ProJo had violated the embargo or whether the paper would face any sanctions.
Whether the embargo was broken or not, the kerfuffle raises some interesting, broader questions about the practice.
Can the administration dole out copies of, say, a budget proposal on a Friday and expect radio silence until the following Tuesday, particularly in the age of the blog?
And what is the ethical responsibility of reporters who get the information? Journalists routinely pick up off-the-record information and then go to other sources to get on-the-record confirmation. Is embargoed information - distributed with an explicit promise not to print - different? I would lean toward a "yes," there.
But what if a reporter, bound by an embargo, gets unsolicited information from a third-party source before the appointed time to publish? Is the reporter required to hold on to it or can he run with it?
And does an embargo apply to individual reporters or entire publications? What if, as the ProJo claims, a reporter digs up the information through entirely legitimate means, even as a colleague is explicitly bound by an embargo? Ethically, that reporter has an argument for publishing.
The Chafee administration will have to decide what it makes of the ProJo story and how to respond. But administrations come and go. Ultimately, the press has to police itself.
Note: I've revised this post from the original, a bit, to include an explicit note that there is no evidence Gregg shared embargoed information with her colleague.
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