Tables turned on some media

Usually, it’s the media probing into personal records of individuals or corporations to use information they can dig up to their advantage in sometimes sensational stories. Now, the situation has reversed.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said yesterday that private investigators it hired to find out who leaked confidential corporate information to the media had accessed private phone records of nine journalists who covered the company, without obtaining their permission.

HP would not disclose the reporters’ names or identify their publications. The Wall Street Journal said one of its reporters, Pui-Wing Tam, was alerted by the California attorney general’s office that her records may have been disclosed to HP. The New York Times reported that its reporter John Markoff also was a target. Technology news service Cnet reported yesterday that a Cnet reporter, Dawn Kawamoto, was notified that her phone records had been accessed.

“HP is dismayed that the phone records of journalists were accessed without their knowledge, and we are fully cooperating with the attorney general’s investigation,” Hewlett-Packard spokesman Ryan Donovan said.

So this poses an interesting occasion for some major news media. How are they handling it?

In an unusual step for the news media, three journalists whose private phone records were scrutinized by investigators working for Hewlett-Packard intend to sue the company for invasion of privacy.

Three of the nine are suing.

The dispute stems from an investigation of Hewlett-Packard’s directors initiated under the company’s former chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn. To try to uncover leaks from board members, private investigators examined the phone records of nine journalists who covered the company, as well as the records of some of their relatives.

It’s bad when any organization does this for any reason. It’s startling when the media get stung like this.

While the dispute revolves around the issue of how the journalists’ careers may have been damaged by having their phone records examined, the threat to sue also raises the question whether it is proper for a news organization or its reporters to sue a company they cover. It is certainly not common…

News organizations and reporters generally decline to pursue financial settlements with companies or individuals they write about because of the possible perception that they might be trading coverage for compensation. Tom Bivins, a media ethics professor at the University of Oregon, called the Hewlett-Packard case “an odd one,” but said he saw no ethical problem with journalists undertaking a suit.

“A journalist is a citizen, after all,” he said.

But Professor Bivins said he saw potential problems going forward for the journalists involved. “If they tried to cover the company again, that would be an ethical problem.”

It’s bad that this happened. It’s good to hear a serious consideration of journalistic ethics.