Houston Chronicle Has Serious Explaining to Do on List of Names Published
Why was it even news?
Push is going to have to come to shove in Houston over an anomalous story published by The Houston Chronicle last week based on a leaked school district personnel document. It’s not the kind of thing that can just pass forgotten. Somebody will have to answer up.
Could be the district itself. Could be the paper. Or both. But somebody.
The Chronicle ran a story by Sam González Kelly reporting that the Houston Independent School District had advised nearly half the district’s school principals they were not meeting the district’s required standard of job performance and would need to up their game by year’s end.
That much was legit. My sources tell me González Kelly’s sources were right, sort of. Many principals were put on notice.
The weird part was this: in a sidebar accompanying the story, the newspaper published a list of the names of the principals put on notice. No one has said how the paper got the list, and I assume no one ever will tell outside a courtoom. I wouldn’t. That’s not what’s weird.
It appears from statements by both the newspaper and the school district that, before publishing the list, the newspaper did not take the document to the school district to ask if it was an official document and if it was accurate.
It was official. It wasn’t accurate.
The list was some kind of early draft that had names on it that shouldn’t have been there. So that means some principals had their names published as being on the sub-par list when they weren’t meant to be.
It gets worse, I think. The school district notified the paper that it had harmed the reputations of some principals by publishing an inaccurate list and doing it without checking first to see if the list was accurate.
The newspaper folded immediately and took down the entire list, meaning they removed it from their website. Of course, they couldn’t remove it from their already printed and distributed print edition because that’s the thing about a mistake in print. It’s like bad behavior at your sister’s wedding reception. You can apologize, but you can’t un-behave badly.
Taking it down was good. Here’s what’s bad, though. The list didn’t just need to come down. The paper needed to name the principals it had falsely maligned, and it needed to apologize to them by name.
I’m not just talking about being nice. Those people were damaged. This stuff stays in the web-o-sphere forever, and it comes up in job interviews forever. The maligned principals need to be able to whip out a sheet of paper or punch it up on their phones and say, “Oh, no, that was entirely the newspaper’s mistake, and look at this, they apologized to me in print.”
Even that assumes the employer brings it up and gives the applicant a chance to make a defense. Like the wedding reception, some of this can never be undone.
But instead of a full-throated apology, The Houston Chronicle added this to the story online:
Editor's note: The Houston Chronicle initially published the names of 117 principals listed as recipients of the email. The news organization then received a tip that the district may have included someone erroneously in its distribution. In its editorial discretion, the Chronicle took down the list of names.
Tip? Tip? You received a letter threatening legal action. That’s not a tip. And what do you mean, “in your editorial discretion?” What discretion?
You published names that shouldn’t have been on the list. You harmed people with an inaccurate story. This isn’t a good time to bring up your discretion. You sound a bit too royal family, frankly. How about a plain old apology?
The school district has some work to do, also. My sources tell me someone within the district definitely slipped the draft list to the paper. Whoever did that bears serious culpability.
There is an underlying question about basic news judgement in even publishing the list of names in the first place. Even if the list had been entirely accurate, my own long experience as a reporter at some very good newspapers – including the Houston Chronicle a long time ago – tells me that publishing it was an anomalous call.
The names are news … why? The principals are not public figures. This is an internal personnel document. Was there a legitimate news value in the list of names that outweighed the expectation of privacy?
If the list of names did not have true news value – I don’t think it did – then that raises the question of other motivations for publishing it. Did someone leak the names and did the paper publish them not to inform readers of news but to sabotage the district?
If that question ever winds up in court, the lawyer for the principals should call me. I will be able to provide a dense track record of coverage in the paper demonstrating a strong tilt toward the known saboteurs. I would expect a very modest fee.
And why did the newspaper publish the list without giving the district a chance to vet it?
I sort of know how that one goes. Been there, done that. Oh, they’re going to blow up when they find out you have it. At 10 a.m. they’ll be furious. At noon they’ll call back and threaten you. After lunch they’ll call you and say they’re going to sleuth out your sources and run over them with a truck.
But at four p.m. before you go to press, you’re going to get a call from a reliable person, somebody you can talk to, who will say, “Look, I know I can’t make you sit on the list, but you need to know it’s a draft and there are five names on there by accident. Do those folks and yourself a big solid and at least get their names off the list.”
Doing it the way the paper appears to have done even by its own characterization – a stone cold ambush -- was bush league in the extreme. There was damage and not minor. Someone will have to answer for that. Heads should roll in both places.
I wish there was a good source for local Houston news apart from the Chronicle.
By just about any measure, HISD has been failing to educate their students. HISD is not unique.
That is a result of poor management. Clearly, there are great teachers and successful schools that have children with similar demographics to HISD.
Change is difficult because it disrupts power structures, routines, and payments.
As a citizen, I am encouraged by the changes being made because it is indisputable that HISD has chronically failed its students
The Houston Chronicle is aiding and abetting the former structures quest to return to a familiar failed normal.
If over 1/2 of our 3rd graders can not read on grade level, then it woul not surprise me that 1/2 of the principals are not up to standards.