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Covering UPMC: The PG stands by its reporting and commentary

Covering UPMC: The PG stands by its reporting and commentary

Sometimes journalists are accused of “just trying to sell newspapers.” But by doing its job, the Post-Gazette will actually sell fewer papers.

Because of covering the news. About UPMC.

The region’s largest health care network has decided to bar the Post-Gazette from being sold in at least three of its hospital gift shops — Children’s, Shadyside and Mercy. Why? Because those with a hand in running the $11.4 billion global enterprise don’t like how it’s being portrayed in Post-Gazette news stories, editorials and editorial cartoons.

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In fact, one of its executives said years ago, after UPMC had cancelled its advertising in the Post-Gazette, that the newspaper knows full well how to get UPMC’s patronage back. We do, but we won’t.

Frankly, we wouldn’t cover UPMC any other way. When the nation’s leading organ procurement agency puts UPMC on probation for breaching transplant protocol, we report that. When UPMC bullies 182,000 older patients by vowing to bar them from UPMC facilities in its feud with Highmark, we report that. When UPMC’s marketing repeatedly warns insurance customers that they must switch to UPMC Health Plan to maintain access, only to say months later that Highmark patients will get to keep their UPMC doctors after all, well, we report that, too.

But since journalism is a public trust that the Post-Gazette takes seriously, we also report on UPMC’s innovation, community impact and economic value. We cover the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance, UPMC’s unique collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University on patient data collection. We report on UPMC’s $100 million pledge to the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship program. We acknowledge the 60,000 jobs UPMC represents in the region.

If only UPMC’s leaders would view their own public trust as earnestly, instead of waging an ego war over press coverage.

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The fact is, UPMC has many tentacles as a newsmaker and the Post-Gazette is obliged to report and comment on all of them. But don’t take our word for UPMC’s serial dichotomies. Many Pittsburghers admire their UPMC doctors but abhor UPMC executives. They appreciate UPMC’s charity care but are appalled that 28 UPMC employees made more than $1 million last year. They are glad that UPMC’s medical expertise can heal people in places such as Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom but are outraged that UPMC would keep Pennsylvanians with the wrong insurance card out of its hospitals.

For average Pittsburghers just trying to stay healthy, UPMC’s bid to control its news coverage is just one more symptom of the corporate smugness and arrogance that continue to wage the ugly fight with Highmark, a fight that has resisted settlement even by state officials.

This vexing and troublesome UPMC is not a Post-Gazette creation, but that of UPMC’s $6.4 million man, Jeffrey Romoff. All a good news organization does is hold up a mirror. Some UPMC chiefs can’t bear that the reflection looks nothing like Mother Teresa. So out go those vile copies of the Post-Gazette. Not content with just Life Changing Medicine, the empire is bent on UPMC Changing Journalism.

Sorry, Mr. Romoff. It’s not going to happen.

For those of you visiting a loved one during a long day at a UPMC hospital, there will be no more “I’ll take a candy bar, a bottle of water and a Post-Gazette” at the gift shop.

But that’s OK. We’ll continue doing the same kind of fair and thorough reporting and commentary that has served Western Pennsylvania for 228 years. Those gift shop customers can buy the Post-Gazette at CVS or Walgreens. Or maybe we’ll just add some news boxes near the hospitals.

Meet the Editorial Board.

First Published: June 24, 2015, 4:00 a.m.

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