Projo Schools Writer Paid by State Education Funds
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Providence Journal has failed to fully disclose to readers that its top education columnist, Julia Steiny, is a paid consultant on a major initiative by the Rhode Island Department of Education.
Steiny, arguably one of the most influential education writers in Rhode Island, has devoted her 16-year column to topics ranging from labor contracts and testing data to anti-bullying efforts. At the bottom of her column, the Journal runs a disclaimer—but leaves out key information.
The disclaimer states: “Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults on schools and government initiatives, such as Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWhat the disclaimer neglects to mention is that Information Works!—the actual name is InfoWorks Live!—is a project of the Rhode Island Department of Education and that Steiny is a consultant on the project. Steiny works for Providence Plan, the nonprofit RIDE hired to handle InfoWorks. That deal is approved by the education commissioner, according to a spokesman for the department.
Also, since mid-2009, Steiny has been a consultant on disciplinary matters for the Central Falls School District, which draws the bulk of its education funding from the state. The district told GoLocalProv that Steiny has a total consulting fee of $36,100 but that the money actually comes from a grant. The district was not able to confirm the source of the grant in time for publication.
Denies a conflict of interest
A search through the online archives for her column, Education Watch, reveals that Steiny has mentioned RIDE at least five times and Education Commissioner Deborah Gist 11 times in her weekly column since 2009. Most recently, last February, Steiny wrote the following about Gist:
“A final hat tip goes to Commissioner Deborah Gist, whose short tenure has not been long enough for her state policies to see results. But her drive, energy and sense of urgency has been a shot in the arm to the system that pushed folks to step up their game. Historically, the Rhode Island education industry insisted on being made comfortable and challenged only very gently, even though the low pressure and lack of accountability produced lackluster results. Love it or hate it, Gist’s urgency has been energizing.”
In another recent column, she urged Governor Lincoln Chafee to keep Gist as education commissioner.
Asked if her comments about Gist constituted a conflict of interest, Steiny responded: “To my mind, no, because I had no conversation nor was there any effort from her office to get good press from me.”
‘Borderline ethical’
But Barbara Luebke, a journalism professor at the University of Rhode Island, said Steiny’s relationship with RIDE raises transparency issues. “I think from a reader perspective, I’m owed transparency from sources of information, whether from a reporter or a columnist,” Luebke said.
She said the editor’s note at the bottom of the column is “probably not sufficient” to fully inform her as a reader of the financial ties between Steiny and RIDE. Full transparency, she said, leaves it up to the reader to decide if there really is a conflict of interest or not—something she said she would determine on a column-by-column basis.
In addition to her consulting work, Steiny does receive a small stipend from the Journal for her column. She declined to disclose the exact amount she is paid.
Linda Levin, the chair of the Journalism Department at the University of Rhode Island said the Journal should get some credit for at least letting readers know that she is an education consultant for government agencies. “They’re doing right thing in disclosing who she is and they do this in a number of columns throughout the week,” Levin said.
“The bigger question," she said, "is should they be using any columns from people who have connections to the groups they’re writing about?”
Once, she said such practices in a newspaper would have been considered “borderline ethical,” but it has become more commonplace. She compared the practice to news Web sites that aggregate content from a variety of sources.
Steiny has been working on RIDE program since 1997
Steiny has been a consultant for InfoWorks since 1997, when it was handled by the University of Rhode Island but still funded by RIDE.
At the time, Steiny said she did have a conversation with her editors about how her new work could affect her role as a columnist. “They basically said, ‘Be transparent and disclose,’” she recalled. “They were delighted because it seemed like they would be getting an unusually informed education columnist.”
After a roughly two-year interlude when the program went dormant, the contract was awarded to Providence Plan in the spring of 2009 and Steiny was brought back as a part-time consultant, she told GoLocalProv. She declined to disclose how much she is earning through the work.
A spokesman for RIDE said the latest contract for InfoWorks—which is an online portal of information on public schools—had been approved through the normal procedures. “We work with a vendor to help us produce InfoWorks and we hired them through the standard bidding process and they’ve done an excellent job of that for us,” said Elliot Krieger. He said Steiny has been a “great part” of that team.
Steiny said the wording of the disclaimer at the bottom of her Education Watch columns was written in conjunction with one of her editors several years ago. She said she had no objections to rewording it so that it explicitly states that InfoWorks is a program of the state Department of Education.
Editors at The Providence Journal yesterday did not respond to a request for comment.
No disclosure on Central Falls
Steiny said she has been "scrupulous" about building walls between her consulting work and her column. She said she tells her clients that she can’t write about them in her column up to one year after she works for them.
For example, she said she had passed on article ideas that Central Falls teachers had pitched to her.
But that hasn’t stopped her from writing other articles about Central Falls. In March 2009, she wrote a column praising the district for its partnership with a charter school. Two months later, Superintendent Frances Gallo called her to offer her a consulting position. Steiny said there was no connection between the two events.
Central Falls again was featured prominently in a March 2010 column about the lowest performing schools. But Steiny said the focus of the column was really on a nationwide phenomenon—not Central Falls specifically. The column made no mention of the fact that she had become a consultant for the district.
‘It is obvious her objectivity is in question’
Others in the education world yesterday said the Journal should do more to disclose Steiny’s ties to the institutions she writes about.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” said Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith. “It is obvious her objectivity is in question...It always has been.”
“It would be good information for readers to know that InfoWorks is a program of the Rhode Island Department of Education only because that position as an independent consultant has gone on for 10 plus years,” said Lisa Blais, herself an education consultant who has been quoted by Steiny in her column. But Blais said she did not think Steiny should have to disclose each new consulting gig that she gets.
On a national level, there have been high-profile cases of journalists with financial ties to the public agencies they were writing about. Several years ago, there was a scandal that centered around the Bush administration, which paid three opinions columnists to promote its policies. One of the columnists, Armstrong Williams, received $240,000 from the Education Department to “plug Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation,” according to CBS News.
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