We’ve had lots of comments about last week’s post on the $300,000 "mutual" decision for RISD Supt. David Simmons and the RISD board to part ways. Most of the comments had to do with the obvious question: Why does someone get paid $300,000 of taxpayer money to quit without a fight?
There’s no small amount of frustration among readers of our blog and others about the parties’ mutual decision to keep quiet on what led to this abrupt parting, particularly since it seems highly unlikely that everyone just woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago and decided they couldn’t stand to look at each other any longer. And there’s no question the board and Simmons have acted legally and are within their legal rights not to say anything more, particularly since all parties agreed not to talk publicly other than to say each wanted to head in a different direction.
So what really happened?
The short answer is that we believe we know, but we can’t tell you. I know that doesn’t sound good, but there is an explanation. More, after the jump:
Shortly after we heard about the separation, two of our writers were told a similar "behind-the-scenes" story about why Simmons stepped down. But both sources declined to allow us to use their names in a blog post, and it has been our longstanding policy — both in th magazine and on the blog — not to quote "anonymous sources;" just like in court, we believe everyone should have the right to confront their accuser or, in this case, know who is saying what about them. It’s one of the differences between how we do business and others do it.
This is not an attempt to be noble, nor is it an attempt to hide behind some grand journalistic principle. In fact, we would probably generate a lot more visits to the blog by putting the information out there. The decision is just a simple nod to the fact that there’s always a chance an "anonymous source" simply has an axe to grind with Simmons or the RISD board. The information being spread just might be false. Once an "anonymous source" has been quoted, particularly in these days of lightening-quick information dispersion, what’s said can never be pulled back, and we don’t want to have any part of spreading false news.
And there’s a more personal reason to be cautious, too. Let’s assume the unlikely did occur: Simmons and the board really did wake up, look at each other with disgust one morning and decide to part ways. If I was in Simmons’ shoes, and all of a sudden a salacious rumor was being spread by a reputable blog about "the real reason" Simmons and the board parted ways — and assume that information was, in fact, not true — my reputation has now been permanently tarnished, and I would be pretty upset. And there wouldn’t be a darn thing I could do about it at that point, because the news would have traveled throughout the online world, and probably into the print and television world, long before I could start denying it.
As I mentioned in a comment to the original post last week, we would much rather get "scooped" by some other news source that can confirm what happened than put the information out there and find out later we were wrong. We make our share of mistakes, to be sure, but those aren’t intentional — we always believe what we’re writing is true.
And although we have every reason to believe the information we received about Simmons’ situation is correct, we can’t be 100 percent sure unless a board member or Simmons confirms the information — and so far, no one has. And although 99 percent accuracy with a couple of anonymous sources probably would be good enough for Entertainment Tonight or Hard Copy or Perez Hilton or hundreds of other online blogs, it’s just not the way we want to do business.
We’ll keep checking, and if we find out anything more that we can confirm to be true, we’ll let you know.
