-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/088/living/Chiquita_story_far_from_over_in_C incinnatiP.shtml <A HREF="http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/088/living/Chiquita_story_far_from_ over_in_CincinnatiP.shtml">Boston Globe Online: Print it!</A> ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE MEDIA Chiquita story far from over in Cincinnati By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 03/29/99 NINE MONTHS after the Cincinnati Enquirer was forced to offer an extraordinary public apology for its tough investigative series on the operations of Chiquita Brands International, the fallout from the episode has been widespread. The Enquirer and Chiquita, two of Cincinnati's most powerful institutions, have been damaged. Careers have been destroyed. And one of journalism's most sacrosanct principles - the relationship between reporter and source - appears to be under serious assault. In June 1998, acknowledging that it had illegally obtained Chiquita voice-mail messages, the Enquirer fired the reporter who broke into the system and the paper paid Chiquita at least $10 million in reparations. Instead of being treated as a dispute between the Enquirer and Chiquita, however, the purloined voice-mail messages spawned a local criminal investigation that has cost about $500,000 and is now in the hands of a reluctant prosecutor from a neighboring county. Several judges recused themselves from the case because they took campaign contributions from powerful Chiquita chairman Carl Lindner. The paper's allegations, which ranged from charges of serious environmental abuse to accusations of a bribery scheme, reportedly generated a Securities and Exchange Commission probe of Chiquita. And former Chiquita lawyer George Ventura, the man who soon faces trial for helping the Enquirer break into the voice-mail system, and now works in Salt Lake City, says he was betrayed by reporters who promised to protect him as a confidential source. ''It's been a big black eye,'' said Skip Tate, associate editor of Cincinnati Magazine and president of the Cincinnati chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. ''It's made the Cincinnati Enquirer look bad. It's made Cincinnati look bad. We spent a half-million dollars in taxpayer money and what's come out of it? Some guy from [Utah] is on trial and that's it.'' The impact of banana-gate is most obvious at the Enquirer (circulation around 200,000). Larry Beaupre, the editor during the investigation, has moved on to a post with corporate parent Gannett. One of the Chiquita reporters - Cameron McWhirter - is now at The Detroit News. And then there is Mike Gallagher, the hard-nosed reporter who was fired after the Enquirer concluded he was ''involved in the theft'' of the voice-mail messages. Last September, Gallagher struck a deal with special prosecutor Perry Ancona. He pleaded guilty to two felony charges in connection with the voice-mail thefts and agreed, in return, to cooperate and ''provide a full, truthful, and complete disclosure as to all `sources' and their activities.'' That raised the possibility that Gallagher was prepared to abandon one of journalism's cardinal rules by revealing a confidential source. (Several years ago, in a case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court, a source who had been promised anonymity successfully sued two Minnesota papers who identified him in the story.) The promise of confidentiality ''is going to be a large issue at some point,'' said Ventura's lawyer Marc Mezibov. ''What's under attack here ... is how news-gatherers obtain information ... What is the legitimacy of this notion that sources are protected?'' ''Obviously [Gallagher] has his own set of interests to worry about,'' said Jane Kirtley, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. But ''when I and others are out there arguing that journalists are highly principled people who will go to the block rather than name a source ... it's not helpful.'' John Fox, editor of Cincinnati's weekly CityBeat newspaper, put it more bluntly. ''Why would a source ever trust a journalist again if the journalist is going to rat him out?'' he asked. ''I don't know of any reporter who's [willing] to go to jail for an indeterminate amount of time,'' countered Gallagher's attorney Patrick Hanley. The aggressive legal pursuit of the Enquirer's reporting techniques - rather than the validity of that reporting - also conjures up memories of Food Lion's lawsuit against ABC on the grounds that its undercover reporters committed fraud to get the story. And it dismays media observers who view this approach as a dangerous deterrent to investigative journalism. ''You have these huge companies [like Chiquita] flexing their muscles in this way, basically using public resources to bring what is basically a private action,'' said Kirtley. A Chiquita spokesman declined to comment on the case. Enquirer publisher Harry Whipple said simply: ''Our newsroom and newspaper is moving on and the community is.'' With the trial slated for April 19, Mezibov has filed motions to dismiss the charges, to exclude tapes of conversations between his client and the reporters, and to prohibit McWhirter and Gallagher from revealing Ventura as a source. Gallagher's problems aren't over either. He still faces a lawsuit filed by Chiquita, and his sentencing on the criminal matter has been postponed until Ventura's trial. Both Gallagher's attorney and the prosecutor say the felonies he has pleaded to are ''presumptively probational,'' meaning he is unlikely to do jail time. The timing of his sentencing has done little to quiet speculation that Gallagher will be a key witness against the man who allegedly helped him access the voice-mail messages. Gallagher's colleague McWhirter signed a cooperation agreement in exchange for no charges being filed, but it requires him only to ''testify completely and truthfully in any legal proceeding.'' ''While he's agreed to cooperate as a witness when and if needed, the nature and extent of that cooperation is different'' from Gallagher's, said McWhirter's attorney Roger Makley. McWhirter's agreement, he added, does not ''require him to breach confidential sources or breach the Ohio Shield Law.'' Yet with the trial looming, there is still a question as to exactly what Gallagher would testify to. ''His deal is he's supposed to tell the truth,'' said Hanley. ''I don't think my guy has got more to offer with respect to Ventura than Cameron McWhirter.'' The man who will prosecute the case against Ventura, Daniel Breyer, said, ''To be honest with you, I'm not sure he's providing a lot of information that Perry Ancona didn't have.'' Breyer is one more interesting twist to the story. The head of the criminal division in neighboring Clermont County, he was deeply immersed in a two-year rape case when given the task of arguing the Chiquita case in court. When asked if he's convinced that only Gallagher and Ventura are criminally liable, given persistent speculation that other Enquirer or Chiquita employees might have shared culpability, he said flatly: ''No. I might have done things differently.' Breyer is equally candid about his enthusiasm for handling this last chapter of the Cincinnati nightmare. ''I wish I had never heard of it,'' he said. This story ran on page C07 of the Boston Globe on 03/29/99. � Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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