Ron Saxton

[November 5th, 2003] Ron Saxton is a bright guy. The Ater Wynne lawyer was a strong leader of the Portland School Board and ran a principled and intelligent, if unsuccessful, campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination last year.

Which makes a recent decision of his somewhat puzzling.

On KATU's Oct. 23 evening newscast, Saxton used his weekly commentary spot for the local ABC affiliate to praise the Multnomah County Children's Receiving Center, an emergency shelter for children whose parents run afoul of the law. Saxton said he doesn't often find government programs to be worthy of acclaim, but he thinks the Receiving Center is different.

"The CRC takes government and makes it caring, efficient and effective," he told viewers. "Once in a while, government actually works."

But there's a disclosure issue with Saxton's endorsement.

The CRC is privately operated by the nonprofit Christie School. What Saxton neglected to mention was that the executive director of the Christie School happens to be his wife, Lynne Saxton.

When WW contacted Saxton, he disputed that his omission constituted a conflict of interest. Neither he nor his wife has anything to gain from the commentary, he argued.

Saxton explained that an early draft of his script included his wife's name, but he deleted the reference to give him more of his 80-second slot to discuss the CRC itself. Saxton claimed that in the KATU newsroom, "the collective view was that it wasn't essential."

But Tom Bivins, a University of Oregon professor who specializes in media ethics, begs to differ.

"This is a clear conflict of interest," Bivins told WW. "In this case, it looks like a blatant grab for publicity. Even public-relations people--honest ones, anyway--try to keep their publicity efforts transparent so that you know who they're working for."

Saxton said the Rogue Desk is making something out of nothing, but he did concede that it is an iss ue of perception. "Now that you bring this to my attention, I'd say if I was going to do it again, I'd probably try to put her name in," he says.

View Saxton's commentary at www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=61827.