Advice columnist crossed an ethical line

The News & Observer faced a dilemma recently. The editors learned that family advice columnist John Rosemond had been cutting ethical corners that violate newspaper standards. He had recycled old columns to his 200-plus newspaper clients without disclosing that they had previously been published. This happened with increasing frequency: three columns in 2003, six in 2004, 12 last year, five through April of this year. That's according to an audit by The Charlotte Observer, where the columns originate. Rosemond works in Gaston County.

There were other problems, The Observer found. Rosemond had represented questions as coming from specific individuals when actually they were composites from several. He also made up fictional characteristics for his questioners, such as age or gender, so as to obscure their identities.

These almost certainly would have been firing offenses if committed by a staffer at a newspaper. When you read a Dennis Rogers column, you expect it to be based in fact and, unless indicated otherwise, new material not recycled from the past. That's called honesty, and it's the foundation of newspaper credibility.

The dilemma that faced The N&O editors: whether to hold Rosemond to journalistic standards and "fire" him by discontinuing his column, or to continue publishing a feature that we know is popular with readers. (When the column was suspended for two weeks in April, I received questions from readers asking about its absence.)

Several papers around the country did kill Rosemond's column. As an editor here asked, do the offenses merit the death penalty -- banishment from the pages of The N&O?

After some discussion, the editors decided to keep the column. Dan Barkin, deputy managing editor who oversees the features department, said he based his decision largely on the fact that The Observer and the Knight Ridder/Tribune news service had investigated Rosemond's actions, accepted his explanations and took steps to protect against such offenses in the future. KRT is the syndicate that distributes Rosemond's column, which is published Tuesdays in the Life, etc. section.

In a mea culpa published in The N&O May 23, Rosemond acknowledged that his actions were wrong and attributed them to a recent stressful period in his personal life when he was caring for several dying family members. He also said he thought he had a years-old understanding with a former Observer editor that recycling of columns was OK. (The former editor disputed that.)

"Until April of 2006, no one had ever sat me down and told me what the rules were," Rosemond told me in an interview. "No one told me this is journalistically ethical and this is not journalistically ethical. But I have to take responsibility for that, because I didn't ask questions." (To read a full interview, go to www.newsobserver.com, keyword: Vaden.)

The N&O's decision to continue the column essentially came down to a conclusion that different standards might apply to non-journalists. The editors reckoned that Rosemond, a psychologist, might reasonably have been unaware that it's not acceptable to recycle columns, synthesize questions or alter identities.

"I think we have pretty clear standards for the journalists that work for us," Barkin said. "In the world of syndicates, it's not as clear." But, as he pointed out, readers don't differentiate between staff writers and syndicated columnists.

The N&O and you, our readers, were burned by Rosemond's deceptions. The N&O's News Research director, Teresa Leonard, looked back at Rosemond columns and found that The N&O had published the same column at least twice in 15 instances since 1998. One column was published three times -- in 1999, 2004 and 2006.