January 25, 2007
Deborah Howell
Ombudsman
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Ms. Howell:
I was pleased to learn, via Greg Sargent's Horse's
Mouth blog, that you plan in your column this weekend to
address John Solomon and Lois Romano's January 19 article
about John Edwards' recent sale of his Georgetown home.
According to Media Bistro,
you wrote on your internal Omblog that you were "troubled" by the
article and that "[i]t was interesting enough to make an item in In the
Loop, but not Page 1. I kept looking for the graf that would tell me that the
buyers had some history with Edwards, that they were big campaign contributors,
that there was some quid pro quo. Nada."
As you may know, Washington Post reporter Jonathan Weisman
expressed similar sentiments during a January 19 "Post Politics
Hour."
While the newsworthiness -- or lack
thereof -- of Solomon and Romano's article is a worthy topic for your
ombudsman column, I write today to bring to your attention several other points
that should be addressed.
The article's newsworthiness is
ultimately a subjective question about which reasonable people can disagree.
But it appears that the article and subsequent statements by Solomon and Post editor Bill Hamilton are based on
fundamentally false premises. You would do your readers and your newspaper a
great service by addressing the following:
- Solomon
and Romano's article asserted
in the first sentence that "the names of the buyers were not
publicly disclosed." Solomon later argued, in a January 23 "Post Politics
Hour" discussion, that this purported lack of
public disclosure is what made the sale newsworthy: "This wasn't a
story about whether John Edwards should or shouldn't have picked the
Klaassens as buyers. It was a story about the transparency of the
deal." Likewise, according to the Media Bistro excerpt of your Omblog
post, Post
editor Bill Hamilton described the sale as involving "a secret
buyer" and "an attempt to shield the important details of a
transaction."
One
wonders how Hamilton
knows what the parties involved in the transaction were attempting to do, as
nobody quoted in the article describes it as an attempt to "shield the
important details."
Perhaps
more significantly, the assertion made in the article and later by both Solomon
and Hamilton that the buyers were "secret" and "not publicly
disclosed" appears to be false. Publicly available records show
that the buyer of the home was P Street LLC. LLCs are required to file articles of organization.
Those documents should list the members of the LLC -- in this case, the
Klaassens. Unless those documents omitted mention of the Klaassens -- and no
one at the Post has indicated
this to be the case -- it is simply false to say that the buyers were
"not publicly disclosed," or that they were "secret."
If, in
fact, there are no public records that show the Klaassens' relationship
to P Street LLC, Solomon and Romano should have made that clear. Otherwise,
this requires a correction by the Post,
at the very least. But an explanation of how Solomon and Hamilton came to
describe the transaction falsely would also benefit readers -- as would some assurance
that the Post will make every
effort to avoid similar false allegations in the future.
- In
his January 23 "Post Politics
Hour" discussion, Solomon's very first
answer suggested that Edwards had violated "federal campaign
law" by insufficiently disclosing the buyers. Solomon
wrote:
Certainly
there's been lots of discussion in the blogs about this story and let me try to
address the core issue. This wasn't a story about whether John Edwards should
or shouldn't have picked the Klaassens as buyers. It was a story about the
transparency of the deal. Those who aspire to
the highest office in the land are required to disclose their financial
dealings to the fullest extent. That isn't a political requirement or some
media-driven imposition. It is encoded in the federal campaign law. When
Edwards' campaign first disclosed the deal, much detail was lacking about the
deal _ most importantly the name of the buyers. Such information is
critical to the transparency of a transaction involving $5.2 million that
occurred on the night before Edwards launched his candidacy. Our story simply
filled in the missing blanks.
Later,
Solomon acknowledged that Edwards "hasn't filed his financial disclosure
form yet" and "still has some time to do that," adding,
"That's where he'll fulfill his legal obligation. There are very specific
and technical rules for how to handle everything from stock transactions to
house sales."
Solomon's
assertion that the question of Edwards' disclosure is not "a
political requirement or some media-driven imposition," but rather a
matter of "federal campaign law" is deeply problematic. The first
answer appears to accuse Edwards of breaking the law -- but even with the later
clarification, Solomon appears to be badly misstating "federal campaign
law" and the disclosure requirements that apply to Edwards' sale.
Solomon
is right that "[t]here are very specific and technical rules for how to
handle everything from stock transactions to house sales." Unfortunately,
it appears that those very specific rules indicate that Edwards does not have to disclose the sale of his
house at all. Though
Solomon was not specific, he was apparently referring to the Executive Branch
Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, which must be filed by Executive
Branch employees and presidential candidates, such as Edwards.
However, The instructions for Standard Form 278,
the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, make clear
that presidential candidates do not fill out Schedule B, which covers
transactions.
But
even if Edwards did have to fill
out Schedule B, he would not have had to disclose the house sale unless he used
the home as a rental property. And even if Edwards used the home as rental
property, and thus had to disclose the sale, it would not be necessary to list
the buyer -- indeed, Schedule B contains no field in which one would list the
buyer even if one wanted to.
To sum
up: As a presidential candidate, rather than a current executive branch
employee, Edwards does not have to fill out Schedule B at all. But even if he did
have to, he wouldn't have to list the sale of a personal residence. And even if he did have to fill out Schedule B, and even if he rented out the home, and thus
had to disclose the sale, he would not have had to disclose the buyer.
Edwards
might have to disclose the sale on Schedule A of the Disclosure Report. But
Schedule A, like Schedule B, does not require disclosure of the buyer -- nor does it provide
a space in which to do so.
It is
possible that Solomon was referring to some other "federal campaign
law" that requires John Edwards to publicly disclose the members of the
LLC that bought his home. If so, Solomon should identify the law immediately,
and I will promptly withdraw this complaint.
Otherwise,
he -- and the Post -- owe Edwards
a public retraction and apology for suggesting that Edwards had, or may, run
afoul of the law by inadequately disclosing the transaction. Solomon and the Post also owe readers an explanation of
how the Post's lead
reporter on campaign finance issues and his editors could apparently be so
completely wrong about the disclosure requirements -- and an assurance
that the Post will make every
effort to avoid such false claims in the future.
- Solomon
and Romano's article made much of the sale price, and of the
difference between the sale price and the amount Edwards paid for the home
four years earlier. But the article didn't give readers any of the context necessary
to assess whether Edwards' profit was unusual or improper -- there
is no mention of the performance of the Georgetown real estate market over the
time in question, for example. Such context would seem to be an essential
element of an article like this. And, as Salon.com's Tim Grieve demonstrated, such
context would likely have shown that there was nothing unusual about the
$1.4 million difference between sale and purchase prices.
Moreover, the article
makes reference to the Edwardses' having undertaken a "substantial
renovation," but it gives no indication of the actual profit made by the Edwardses,
after the transaction costs and the presumably substantial cost of the
"substantial renovation" are considered.
It is
worth noting that last year, while employed by the Associated Press, Solomon
co-wrote an article about a real estate transaction in which Sen. Harry Reid
made what appeared to be a sizable profit -- and that article, too, omitted any
context about the Las Vegas real estate market that would help readers assess
the transaction.
- Finally,
Hamilton reportedly told you
that the sale justified front-page treatment because it involved a
"presidential candidate [who] just happens to be a millionaire who
is basing his campaign on a populist appeal to the common man."
Hamilton's statement appears to suggest that, because Edwards'
campaign is based in part on promoting policies designed to benefit "the
common man" and combat poverty, his personal financial transactions and
wealth are newsworthy.
I hope Hamilton does not mean to
suggest that the personal financial transactions and wealth of candidates who oppose such policies would not be
newsworthy.
Indeed,
it would seem that exploring the personal finances of wealthy candidates who support
policies that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy would be a better
use of the Post's
resources.
In any
case, the Post should clarify
whether it plans to subject candidates who base their campaigns on an
"appeal to the common man" to greater financial scrutiny than those
who advocate policies that will benefit the wealthy.
I hope you will use your column to
explore these issues and to determine that these mistakes were made, rather
than focusing solely on an assessment of the news value of the story -- and
that you will use your position to urge the Post
to retract and apologize for any false or misleading statements, either in the
original article and in subsequent comments made by Solomon and Hamilton.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if
you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Jamison Foser
Managing Director
Media Matters for America
