Posted 9/26/2006
Silicon Valley journalists just got tougher — and for some, so has their job.
Revelations that investigators hired by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) spied on reporters and stole their identities to get personal records all but guarantee the Silicon Valley icon will face a more skeptical press.
They also put at least nine reporters at four publications in the awkward position of figuring out how to cover a company that has wronged them personally.
Many questions arise. For example, should news outlets reassign reporters to ensure personal grudges don't taint coverage? Will reporters be a lot tougher?
"Each person is going to have to answer the questions for themselves," said Christine Tatum, a business editor at the Denver Post and president of the Society of Professional Journalists. "Could you continue to be objective and fair and accurate and balanced about a company that felt entitled to rifle through your private information? It's dicey."
Tatum says she doubts she could remain objective in such circumstances. But some publications might not want to remove an experienced reporter with the ability — proven dramatically in this case — to dig up information.
"As an editor, I would have to have a hard conversation with the reporter," she said.
The relationship between reporters and companies they cover is inevitably an uneasy one. But HP's actions, a first for a company its size, tread new ground.
'New Layer Of Skepticism'
"It's clear that HP has some fences to mend with the affected journalists, and it may be a while before they regain the trust of the media in general," said Jamie Diaferia, partner at Infinite Public Relations.
"Even if HP is the only company to have ever done something like this, other journalists have to at least wonder about their relationships with large public companies. It adds a new layer of skepticism to the process that may never disappear."
In a scandal bound to go down as a classic case study in journalism and PR textbooks, the tech giant dug up personal phone records on reporters and their families, had some followed, tried to send spyware to one and possibly dug through the trash of another.
At one point, HP's investigators considered getting jobs as cleaners and secretaries at two news outlets to make the spying easier.
"I pity the men and women coordinating HP's PR," said Michael Shmarak, a principal at Sidney Maxwell Public Relations. "Without question, this whole predicament is going to cause angst between the media and the company."
Still, he added, most journalists don't let personal feelings affect their work.
The HP probe targeted Dawn Kawamoto, Tom Krazit and Stephen Shankland of CNet's News.com; Pui-Wing Tam and George Anders of the Wall Street Journal; John Markoff of the New York Times; and Peter Burrows, Ben Elgin and Roger Crockett of BusinessWeek.
Kawamoto and Krazit wrote a few stories as the scandal broke Sept. 5. But once it became clear that during the probe HP had obtained their records, colleagues took over.
News.com's replacement reporters included Shankland, but his HP stories stopped after the online publication reported that the tech firm also targeted him.
Reporters Taken Off Story
Tam and Anders of the Wall Street Journal have not written about HP since the scandal broke.
While the New York Times' Markoff has not written a bylined story about HP since the scandal broke, he was credited for helping in the reporting process for a Sept. 22 piece about it.
The newspaper also quoted him in a Monday story about companies' efforts to plug leaks. Markoff, the victim of an e-mail hacker 10 years ago, said in that story that the tactics used by HP might be more common than most people assume.
BusinessWeek's Burrows wrote a Sept. 22 piece about HP's efforts to ferret out and fire workers caught speaking to the media. A tag line at the bottom of the story mentions Burrows' role as victim in the scandal.
(The BusinessWeek and CNet reporters didn't respond to e-mail questions, while the other two publications weren't contacted.)
Elizabeth Corcoran, a Forbes magazine reporter married to Anders, wrote about HP for a Sept. 22 first-person account about the ordeal.
For some, being revealed as one of HP's targets amounts to a badge of honor, a modern-day equivalent of being named to Richard Nixon's "enemies list."
Brian Johnson, a public relations consultant in Silicon Valley, said some journalists might not be too upset over the incident.
"Imagine what's going through the reporter's mind," Johnson said. " 'Gosh! My work is so important, HP and its executives are willing to risk their reputation to find my sources and methods.'
"That's very flattering indeed."
