Carolyn Jack

Editor and CEO, Geniocity.com
A project of The Genius Group LLC

Rosenberg’s rebuttal

This isn’t about starting a business, but it is about an issue with implications for all news and opinion outlets, including Geniocity.com. As discussed in this blog a few months ago, on Sept. 29 and 30, former Plain Dealer Music Critic Donald Rosenberg was demoted this past fall from his longtime position as the newpaper’s chief reviewer of the Cleveland Orchestra because The Plain Dealer’s top editor said his reviews had become predictably negative about orchestra musical director Franz Welser-Most.

The editor and the orchestra’s executives reportedly said a lot of other things about Rosenberg’s conduct as a critic that can only be described as ridiculously untrue by those who, like me, know him and his work well.

To prove that point, Rosenberg filed suit yesterday against The Plain Dealer; its executive editor, Susan Goldberg; the orchestra’s parent company, the Musical Arts Association; and its leaders including executive director Gary Hanson.  

Rosenberg claims, in essence, that the Musical Arts Association and its leaders defamed him and conspired with The Plain Dealer and its editor to remove him from his job, further defaming and lying about him in the process and depriving him of his good reputation as well as his chosen and deserved livelihood.

It’s an interesting lawsuit, even to those of us who aren’t lawyers. It challenges the public to consider what the proper role of a critic is; whether newspapers and their editors are bound to abide by the First Amendment and their own ethics rules about free speech, fair comment and journalistic responsibility  when it comes to personnel matters; and whether an employee’s community standing and personal honor can somehow legally be separated from his status as an employee in the event that he is publicly disciplined by his employer. 

Not being learned in the law whatsoever, I’ll leave the evaluation of the case’s merits to Geniocity’s Peter Friedman, if he cares to undertake it. But as to the journalistic implications of Rosenberg’s demotion, I will say this: 

A democratic society cannot function or survive without public sources of reliable news. Those public sources cannot shrink from publishing verifiable facts and honest opinion about public figures, institutions, events or issues without creating the appearance of protecting special interests and so losing the public’s trust.

Frankly, I can’t wait to see what Judge John Sutula of Cuyahoga County’s Court of Common Pleas makes of this. To read the case file, click on this: filed_complaint1.