Sunday, September 07, 2008
From the Newsroom: Journal story prompts questions about Carilion coverage
From the newsroom
Michael Stowe, managing editor
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From the Newsroom blog
A recent Wall Street Journal article reignited a debate over whether Carilion Clinic is gaining a monopoly and driving up health care costs in the Roanoke region.
It also prompted more than a dozen readers to e-mail the newsroom and question our coverage of Carilion, the Roanoke Valley's largest employer and its dominant hospital system.
"It is totally inexcusable that The Roanoke Times did not cover the story nor reproduce the complete article," one reader wrote.
"The controversial information ... should be covered by a local paper known for top notch investigative reporting. Why the silence?" another asked.
I want to address those concerns and to speak up for our track record of reporting on Carilion.
We recognize the importance of health care in the region and that Carilion's influence in the Roanoke Valley is unmatched. That's why we have had a full-time reporter assigned to cover the health care business for more than a decade. The beat, covered now by Sarah Bruyn Jones, is one of the most demanding at the paper.
Reporters and editors here had been anticipating the Wall Street Journal story for months.
We knew that Journal reporter John Carreyrou had visited Roanoke earlier in the summer to report on Carilion's growing influence in the region. What new facts or sources, we wondered, might he uncover?
When the story published in the Journal on Aug. 28, we were pleased to see few surprises.
Many of the article's major points -- Carilion converting to a physician-led clinic; Carilion increasing its market share by buying private medical practices; the simmering tensions between Carilion and a group of independent doctors; and the rising salary of Carilion Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ed Murphy -- were topics that our reporters have covered in numerous stories over the past couple of years.
The Journal story also noted how Carilion had awarded millions of dollars worth of construction work over a three-year period to the company of Jay Turner, who sits on its board of directors. Business reporter Jeff Sturgeon wrote a story looking at that potential conflict of interest in May.
A couple of issues raised in the Journal article -- such as Carilion's practice of suing patients who don't pay their bills, for one -- are stories that we're still reporting and plan to publish in the coming months. It's an important subject that deserves more attention than the few paragraphs it got in the Journal.
Carilion will remain an integral part of our news report. We'll continue to write about the clinic's positive contributions to our community -- and there are many -- and we'll continue to dig beneath the surface and provide context to explain what Carilion's growth means to our economy and the quality of health care in the region.
Comics comments
More than 100 readers have contacted us to object to our decision to no longer carry the comic strip "For Better or For Worse." We decided to let the strip end because creator Lynn Johnston ended the current story line and began retelling the serial strip again.
We knew the strip was popular -- and knew readers would miss it -- but we want to publish original comics. While we do run classic "Peanuts," as a few readers pointed out, we see the end of "For Better or For Worse" as an opportunity to add a new strip. "Peanuts" also isn't a serial, with a narrative thread and characters who age through the years.
We're planning a poll in January to get your opinions on some possible new strips. If you have suggestions now, send an e-mail to extra@roanoke.com.
