Warning to US Journalists: Do NOT Ask Difficult Questions of Powerful CEOs

Warning to US Journalists: Do NOT Ask Difficult Questions of Powerful CEOs
by Jon Queally


Labor journalist Mike Elk on Thursday attended a Capitol Hill conference where he performed the unspeakable act of behaving like a journalist. During the Q&A portion of a panel discussion, Elk rose to ask a question of Honeywell CEO David Cote, but as Congressional staffers nearby realized that his question wasn't a soft-ball about how a young entrepreneur might climb to the heights of corporate America, but a serious question regarding "labor practices and the recent release of radioactive UF6 gas" at a Honeywell uranium facility in Metropolis, Illinois," the microphone was ripped from Elk's hands and his questioning cut off.

So much for being a credentialed journalist trying to ask a CEO an uncomfortable question in public.

Subsequently when he tried to follow up with Honeywell's Cote in the hallway, as Elk describes, Honeywell's external communication manager Nick Ferris barricaded him in a side room for several minutes and would not let him leave. Ferris then had the Capitol Police detain Elk for several more minutes, but the police released Elk after he pointed out that it is not a crime for a journalist to follow a CEO down a hallway. "Indeed," writes Elk in an email describing the episode, "Capitol Police asked me if I wanted to press charges against Ferris for false imprisonment for barricading me in the room." Elk declined.

Ironically, or perhaps not, President Obama has a scheduled speech today at Honeywell's corporate headquarters in Minnesota. Given the events of yesterday, Elk wondered if it wouldn't be appropriate for some journalist -- given the opportunity -- to ask Obama why Honeywell, a top corporate donor to the Democratic Party, has been able to bust unions with such impunity. Perhaps in the President's presence, the journalist would receive a higher level of respect, if not an adequate answer. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/06/01-4