PANAX BLASTS 'LYNCH-LAW JUSTICE' OF NEWS COUNCIL; BREAKS OFF CONTACT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400260016-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 16
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400260016-6
.Panax blasts 'lynch-law justice'
of .news council; breaks off contact
(Continued from page 1)
McGoff and the National News Council
was triggered when the council denounced
him last July for "autocratic ownership" of
his newspapers.
A month earlier, the editor of a Panax
newspaper in Escanaba, Mich. resigned and
the editor of a Panax daily in Marquette,
Mich. was fired after each balked at run-
ning stories they considered irresponsible
journalism.
The stories, written by former bureau chief
for New York for Panax, George Bernard,
insinuated that President Carter condoned
promiscuity among his staff and that he was
grooming his wife for the vice presidency.
The stories were distributed from Panax
headquarters here in East Lansing to Panax
editors, who were urged to give them good
play in their papers. Panax owns seven
dailies and 43 weeklies. McGoff owns two
dailies and 14 weeklies through a separate
company in California.
THE NATIONAL News Council, after
taking a telephone poll of its members, then
denounced McGoff for dictating that those
stories be run.
McGoff objected to the denunciation and
asked for an open hearing on the matter.
The council set a date for the hearing in
August, but didn't conduct it because Panax
later said it wouldn't attend unless certain
demands were met first.
Panax insisted that the council retract its
denunciation because it was done hastily,
without getting Panax' side of the issue and
in violation of the council's rules of proced-
ure. It also demanded that council chairman
Norman Isaacs abstain froin all council niat-
tersconcerning Panax.
However, this doesn't sound like the story
McGoff was telling before the news council
denunciation.
Ile told Publishers' Auxiliary that the
editor's refusal to run the stories was it sim-
ple "issue of insubordination. I think as
publisher and president of this organization
I have the authority to determine that if I
want something in I'm going to get it in. 1
don't think the subjective thinking of an
editor should stand in a publisher's way
when lie wants to print something.
Also, in an article published in the. Ex-
cana.ha Daily Press on July 2, McGoff wrote
about the "firing of two editors" and stated,
"Regardless of the merits or demerits of the
Bernard columns, and whether the two dis-
missed editors agreed with the content, it
should have had no bearing on their willing-
ness to include such columns ill the paper's
content.... It is nny view that these two
editors are the epitome of arrogance to have
their jobs rather than to participate in the
dissemination of ideas contrary to their
own....
IN MID-SEPTEMBER, the council met
and set the Oct. 19 (late for it hearing on the
issue, whether or not McGoff or it surrogate
attends..
It also expressed its confidence in Isaacs
and endorsed the methods a telephone vote
instead of a hearing -it used to obtain its
resolution denouncing McGoff?.
In a statement last week, McGoff said,
"We did, and do, welcome it full and fair
airing of the facts of that dispute by any
impartial panel. But we cannot trust an or-
ganization which showed so little regard for
fair play in formulating charges and then
when reminded how flagrantly it had dis-
regarded its own rules, made matters worse
by saying it routinely ignores those rules.
"That, pure and simple, is lynch-law
`justice,"' he said.
McGoff also insists now that neither of the
editors left the papers for objecting to the
two Bernard articles.
"Attempts were made then, and the lie
has been repeated since, to make it appear
that they had been fired for 'refusing' to put)-
fish stories sent to them from corporate
headquarters. No Panax editor was fired
then, or since, on such grounds.
"'I he man who resigned, :i good editor,
did so in what could only lie described as an
internal misunderstanding. 1 he man who
was fired was fired because lie flat-out re-
fused to accept the principle that the chain
of command, the authority which matches
the responsibility, ends at the top in editorial
affairs just as it does in other matters."
Approved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400260016-6