How Private Lunch Talk Led to a Reporter?s Firing

This is a story about the firing of an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette sportswriter here in Northwest Arkansas.

Normally I would have no interest in rehashing a personnel decision by the statewide daily newspaper, but this situation is different and there are a few lessons to be learned.

The sportswriter, Jeffrey Wood, was having a casual lunch with a friend at Fuzzy’s in Fayetteville the other day. During the course of the conversation, he and the friend got caught up on what was happening in their personal lives and then moved into a discussion about careers.

Amid the discussion, he made several observations about the Northwest Arkansas newspaper war. Among them were some disparaging remarks about the Democrat-Gazette.

Later that day, Wood learned another employee of the Democrat-Gazette, whom he didn’t know, happened to be sitting at a table immediately next to him at the restaurant. This employee eavesdropped on the conversation and promptly returned to the Democrat-Gazette office in Springdale to tell the bosses everything that Wood had said to the friend.

The Democrat-Gazette bosses hit the ceiling. That sportswriter had the audacity to utter negative words about his employer to somebody during a private conversation.

Six days later, Sports Editor Wally Hall summoned Wood to the Democrat-Gazette’s Springdale office and informed him his services were no longer needed. He axed a reporter who had delivered one scoop after another on the high school recruiting trail and who had been given no indication whatsoever that he was failing in job performance. In fact, he had just received a glowing evaluation.

I take a very personal interest in this development because the friend with whom Wood had the lunch conversation was me.

This may be news to the Democrat-Gazette staff. There is absolutely no indication that the snoop who eavesdropped knew who I was.

So much for free speech

What does this say about a supposed defender of the First Amendment? I suppose loyalty to the Democrat-Gazette exceeds the right of free speech.

If Wood had been engaging in espionage or sharing confidential information about the Democrat-Gazette, then maybe I could understand the newspaper’s action. But he shared absolutely nothing that could be construed as either.

He offered straightforward opinions that media colleagues share with one another every day. I’m not reporting what he said about the Democrat-Gazette because it was a private conversation that was thought to be between two people.

I gave Wood his first job in journalism at the Northeast Arkansas Tribune in Paragould back in 1989. We worked together for a couple of years before he moved to Fayetteville for a job at the Northwest Arkansas Times, and we’ve stayed in touch.

I’ve tried to hire him a couple of times because he’s a top-notch journalist. In fact, I’m happy to report he has finally joined Arkansas Business Publishing Group as an associate editor and will continue to use his talents in Northwest Arkansas by writing for Arkansas Business and the Business Journal.

Never could I have imagined that a young man I brought into this profession might get fired because a gutless, eavesdropping colleague felt compelled to earn points with the bosses. It’s even worse that responsible newspaper executives would react in the way they did, apparently without considering that some of his opinions might be on target and worth hearing.

We regularly have healthy debates and disagreements around here about things we do or don’t do, and we’re far from perfect in matters of personnel. I would prefer that these discussions stay within the confines of our office, but I can’t control what people say on their own time.

In my mind, the Democrat-Gazette showed it can’t tolerate the free, open expression of opinions — a principle on which a newspaper should be built — between two people when it’s the target of criticism. Jeff Wood’s firing was a sad day in Arkansas journalism.