A Hews Media Group-Community News investigation has found that Dan Morain’s tenure as Editorial Page Editor for McClatchy’s flagship newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, apparently overlapped his stint as an executive board member of the union-funded Voice of Orange County. This raises a number of journalistic ethical questions that go beyond the reasons given publicly for NBC’s recent suspension of Brian Williams.
Voice of Orange County is heavily funded by the powerful Orange County Employees Assn., and is known to be extremely biased regarding unions and Democrats.
Mr. Morain continually has backed government-related labor and public employee pensions during his tenure on the editorial board of the Bee.
Credit for part of this story goes to Leslie Brodie, publisher of the Leslie Brodie Report, and Katy Grimes, an independent investigative journalist.
In late 2011, Ms. Brodie obtained detailed financial and organizational information about the Voice of Orange County after she filed a complaint against the entity with the Internal Revenue Service.
Ms. Brodie’s investigation revealed questionable funding links between and among Voice, its founders, CaliforniaAll, the U.C. Irvine Foundation, the California Bar Foundation, and a number of public utilities.
As a result of her complaint and exposé, the complete tax returns of Voice found their way into the public and the funding intermediary, non-profit CaliforniaAll, dissolved.
CaliforniaAll’s remaining assets were returned to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, an action that normally is illegal for a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Ms. Grimes, writing for the FlashReport and the Sacramento Citizen, authored an update about Voice’s questionable reliance on the Employees Association last June.
Like Ms. Brodie, Ms. Grimes focused on the bias in Voice’s coverage in recent elections, its key leadership, and detailed the sources of its funds.
Ms. Brodie also wrote that Dan Morain had become an editor at the Sacramento Bee, but missed his promotion to editorial page editor.
Neither Ms. Brodie nor Ms. Grimes noticed the overlap of Mr. Morain’s conflicting journalistic roles at Voice and the Bee.
Acting on a tip about CaliforniaAll and the illegal donation to PG&E, we have subsequently uncovered the Morain conflict.
Launch Date
Voice of Orange County started in September 2009 with 100 percent funding by the Orange County Employees Assn.
According to media accounts, the founders of Voice were former state Sen. Joe Dunn (Dem.-34), former Los Angeles Times reporter and now U.C. Irvine law professor Henry Weinstein, and Employees Association President Nick Bernardino.
Norberto Santana Jr., former Orange County Register and San Diego Union-Tribune investigative reporter, was hired as the blog’s editor-in-chief.
Overlap of Employers
Media accounts written about the launch of Voice in September 2009 by several newspapers and blogs described Mr. Morain’s role there as “a board member with the startup from its earliest beginnings.”
According to Voice’s 2010 and 2011 tax returns, Mr. Morain served on the executive board, exerting influence on the Voice’s web blog, radio service and news bureau that was, and still is, deeply intertwined with the large and powerful Employees Association, along with several prominent Democratic operatives.
Mr. Hews may be contacted at loscerritosnews.net
