Skip to main contentThe top two editors at The Business Journal have resigned after a dispute with the paper's publisher.
Dan Cook, who has edited the paper since 1997, left on Sept. 22, and managing editor Sharon DeBusk followed him out the door three days later. Neither would elaborate on the reasons for their departure. "There were philosophical differences over the paper's direction. That's all I will say," Cook told WW.
But sources familiar with the situation at the weekly paper say that tensions boiled over following Business Journal Publisher Craig Wessel's decision on Sept 10 to kill a story that had been written, edited and sent to the printer.
The story in question was an interview with David Greenberg, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/ Willamette, scheduled to run in the paper's Sept 12 edition. (Portland's Business Journal is one of more than 40 business journals around the country owned by the Newhouse family's Advance Publications. Advance also owns The Oregonian.)
Normally, a newspaper's editors decide which stories run, while the publisher oversees advertising and circulation. At least in theory, editorial and financial decisions are made separately in order to preserve editorial independence.
"These editors are speaking with their actions," says Tom Bivens, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon who specializes in ethics. "Publishers aren't supposed to impinge on papers in this way."
Nancy Bennett, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood, says the article was pegged to the organization's local expansion at a time when other nonprofits are struggling. She learned the story had been killed on Sept 11, and she says called reporter Robin Moody, who conducted the Greenberg interview, and was told that Wessel had killed the story because the paper "doesn't cover extremist groups."
Bennett adds that when she pressed Moody for more information, she was told that Wessel was unhappy that story was positioned the same page as an ad for an important Business Journal advertiser, Key Bank. (Moody declined to comment to WW.)
"It seemed that advertising decisions are dictating editorial content," Bennett says.
Contacted by WW, Wessel acknowledged that he killed the story after it was completed but would not provide details about the two editors' departures.
Wessel says he sometimes takes part in editorial meetings but, to the best of his recollection, has never killed a completed story before. Although there was a Key Bank ad on the same page as the Planned Parenthood interview, Wessel says his decision had absolutely nothing to do with advertising concerns. He also denies calling Planned Parenthood an extremist group. "The reason that the story didn't run is that it wasn't a news story and it had no relevance to the business community," says Wessel.
Here is the transcript of Moody's interview with Greenberg.
Editor's note: The interview that Business Journal reporter Robin Moody conducted with David Greenberg was conducted by email. Here is a transcript of the questions and responses, which was provided to Willamette Week by Planned Parenthood.
Business Journal: What initially drew you to work for Planned Parenthood?
David Greenberg: While working as the coordinator of an adolescent maternity program at Franklin Maternity Hospital in Philadelphia I was elected to serve on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania. After having worked with teens in substance abuse programs and pregnant and parenting teens, I wanted to do more to try to prevent the kinds of risk-taking behaviors that led to drug problems and teen pregnancy. Planned Parenthood offered me a great opportunity to help support prevention efforts through education and family planning services. I later served as the Director of Operations for a very large OB/GYN provider group in Philadelphia, and when I had the opportunity to become the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Delaware, it was a perfect match combining my interests in health, education and prevention.
What is your vision for the nonprofit?
Nonprofit organizations are essentially mission-driven businesses. We share similar opportunities and challenges with for-profit companies, and to be successful in meeting our missions, we need to be efficient and well-managed. My goals for Planned Parenthood include making sure that we're true to our mission of providing, promoting and protecting access to reproductive healthcare. We do this by being clear about our focus, goals and programs, consistent in communicating our values and beliefs, and responsible in managing our operations.
While Planned parenthood has traditionally been synonymous with women's reproductive health, I understand the group is making a push [to] reach more men. Explain.
The decisions about whether and when to have children are best made by both men and women, and Planned Parenthood tries to ensure that all children are born welcomed and wanted. Men obviously have a responsibility here. Many men want to take a more active role in these decisions, and in both our education programs and our clinics we're trying to do a better job of serving men. Making sure that we have condoms available at no charge and counseling men about all the contraceptive options available for them and their partners is an example. Also, with the rates of sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS climbing at an alarming rate, more men are seeking our services, and this gives us additional opportunities to talk about family planning issues. Finally, we're expanding our vasectomy program to help men who've decided not to have more children.
There have recently been a slew of new birth control methods and a new sterilization method technique that have hit the market. Have you integrated these into your choices for women, why or why not? What are the advantages and disadvantages of these new methods?
Planned Parenthood has been a leader in bringing new birth control technology to all women and men as soon as it becomes available. Just last year we began offering the Ortho Evra Patch which is worn on the skin, the NuvaRing, a flexible ring that fits into a woman's vagina, the once-a-month injectable hormonal contraceptve shot called Lunnelle, and the Mirena IUD. Each has its advantages, and our staff helps women compare these newer birth control methods with older methods including pills, Depo-Provera shots that are given once every three months, condoms and other barrier methods like the diaphragm. There's no single "perfect" method, and most women will use several methods throughout their reproductive years. We also just started providing a new female sterilization procedure called Essure. It's 99.8% effective as a permanent, non-reversable form of birth control that doesn't require surgery. And as I mentioned above, we offer vasectomies for men.
What about moving into a broader range of services like prenatal and fertility? What is Planned Parenthood's role in these areas?
Planned Parenthood is aware of the increasingly limited amount of prenatal care services that especially low income women are facing. We've started exploring whether it might be possible to offer prenatal care in our health centers, and it seems feasible, we may do this later this year. We've also started looking at what our role should be in the important area of fertility services and the complex bioethical issues surrounding helping couples experiencing difficulty in having children to conceive. How we move forward with new services like prenatal care or fertility services will depend, in part, on community need and our ability to make a contribution to the health of women and men.
How have you helped stabilize the finances of the Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette? Talk about your push to balance the payer mix.
Since it's Planned Parenthood's goal to provide health and education services to all who need them, regardless of ability to pay, during the past several years we've made significant progress in making sure that our business operations are as efficient as we can make them. We've worked hard to control operation costs while increasing the amount of revenue we receive. We replaced an old computer system with a modern clinic information system that included new medical management software and a network connecting all seven health centers. Our new systems are efficient and secure. We can now bill most insurance plans for patients who have private insurance, and we're continuing to negotiate new contracts so that we can bill insurance plans for our medical services.
We've also made good use of the internet in providing access to information and services. Through our website, www.ppcw.org, we now offer the ability to schedule medical appointments online, calculate the cost of a visit, and even order emergency contraception on-line. Donors can contribute and supporters can sign up to become a volunteer through our website. We can respond to medical questions via email and through our new "Ask-a-Nurse"
hotline.
Two years ago we had a 44% increase in patients, and last year we saw a 19% increase. We anticipate at least 10% growth this year. Last year we served over 38,000 patients. Since 1998 our budget has grown from $4 million to $11.5 million this year. We've also strengthened our fundraising programs to increase the number of donors who support our services. During the past two years we've even offered our patients the opportunity to become donors, and last year they contributed over $130,000 to help pay for services for other low-income patients.
How does Oregon's Planned Parenthood compare to how the organization is run in other states?
There are 125 separate Planned Parenthood organizations serving men and women in all 50 states. The clinical operations are similar in that we all offer basic birth control and education programs. There are two Planned Parenthoods in Oregon, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette (PPCW) and Planned Parenthood Health Services of Southwestern Oregon (PPHSSO) located in Eugene and serving the southwestern Oregon counties.
PPCW provides a more comprehensive range of services than most. In addition to the basic family planning and education services, we provide cancer screening and colposcopy and Leep services, Essure sterilization, vasectomies for men, and both surgical and medical abortion services. We've been a pioneer in that we were the first Planned Parenthood to offer medical abortions, and one of the first to offer emergency contraception pills that prevent pregnancy even up to five days after intercourse. PPCW and PPHSSO have also developed a great statewide partnership that raises money throughout Oregon to support our programs and services and helps educate the public about our mission and issues. PPCW, because we also provide services in southwest Washington, also works collaboratively with four other Planned Parenthoods in that state.
Planned Parenthood will open a new drive-up-style, free standing clinic in Salem this fall. Why have you opted to construct a facility rather than move into an existing building like clinics typically do?
When we decided to replace our small, aging facility in Salem, we looked for a building to rent and renovate. When we couldn't find a suitable building, we decided to purchase land and design and build a facility that would exactly meet our needs and the needs of the community. With the help of donors in Salem, Portland and even outside of Oregon, we have raised almost all of the $1.2 million needed. Our new health center, named the Charla Richards-Kreitzberg Planned Parenthood Center will open in early October. The 5400 sq. ft. building will provide family planning services, cancer screening, early abortion care, emergency contraception, walk-in hours, a drive-up window for picking up birth control supplies including pills and condoms and space for a new community education program and our public affairs staff. We'll also have meeting space for our partner organizations. Our new center will enable us to meet the growing need for health services.
In recent years there have been a number of Planned Parenthood clinics which have been bombed or threatened with bombing. How have these security threats changed the organization? Has the violence subsided recently?
Long before September 11th and the anthrax threats that followed, Planned Parenthood buildings, staff and patients have been the targets of threats and violence. Although PPCW has only experienced picketing and a few threatening calls and letters over the past two years, other Planned Parenthoods have continued to be attacked. I think that the American people have no tolerance for acts of terror, whether they be against our country or organizations like Planned Parenthood, and I hope that we'll soon see an end the increased security precautions that all of us have had to take.
I understand Planned Parenthood recently had a political win in Salem with the passage of a bill that funds the medical exam and emergency contraception for rape victims. Why is this important?
All women should have access to medical care and emergency contraception that can prevent unintended pregnancies. But this is especially true for women who have been raped. Planned Parenthood is very pleased that our representatives and senators were able to come together in agreement that medical care and emergency contraception should be provided to rape victims.
What about the bigger political picture? Do you have secure federal funding? Comment on the current administration's take on reproductive health.
Oregon and Washington have shown a remarkable commitment to making sure that family planning services are available for all women and men—and with good reason. The programs that provide these services, the Family Planning Expansion Project in Oregon and the Take Charge Program in Washington have saved taxpayers many millions of dollars because thousands of unintended pregnancies have been prevented. The Bush administration would prefer not to support an expansion of birth control services, and certainly they are trying to limit access to abortion, but in recognizing how important federal funding has been in preventing unintended pregnancies, they haven't reduced the amount spent on federal family planning support. I think that reproductive health issues should stay focused on health concerns rather than the moral issues that need to be addressed in families and churches. If we do this, we'll start acting more like other countries that have significantly lower rates of teen pregnancies.
WWeek 2015