Should reporters serve on boards of directors? Or editors, for that matter?
Pennsylvania American Water Co. in Hershey thought its board could use the outside perspective that a Pittsburgh television reporter would bring. So it named Jon Delano of KDKA-TV on Wednesday to its nine-member board. And the subsidiary of Voorhees-based American Water e-mailed a press release detailing the career path of Delano, “the station’s award-winning money and politics editor.”
KDKA's Web site says Delano joined the station full time in 2001 with a special emphasis on political analysis. He also hosts a weekly public affairs program called the KDKA Sunday Business page and writes a nightly feature called Money Minutes about financial tips.
All journalists are concerned with conflicts of interest or even the appearance of a conflict. In all the years of reading announcements of new board members of for-profit companies, I couldn't remember seeing a reporter serving on one.
After sending the water utility's announcement to KDKA to check its policy, I got an e-mailed response from news director John Verrilli, in which he said that station management was not consulted in advance of the board appointment:
"After Jon was made aware of the Station's concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest, Jon has made the decision to resign from the PAW board effective today."
Terry Maenza, manager of external affairs for the water utility, confirmed that Delano resigned from the board Thursday. He said the company still thought Delano would have made a fine addition to the board; it is always seeking people with a diverse set of skills.
Chris Roush, a business journalism professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he sees two problems with business reporters sitting on the board of public or private company.
"It would give the appearance that the journalist's media outlet would play favorites to that company — even though that may not be the case," Roush said in an e-mail. "It would call into question the motives of everything that the journalist would write in the future, even if it had nothing to do with the company."
- Mike Armstrong
