Exec's gambit puts Daily News editors on defensive.

The editorial leadership of the Daily News of Los Angeles has been put in the position of defending its coverage of the Department of Water & Power after an advertising representative initiated correspondence with the department by offering to "mend fences."

Chris Lancaster, director of government relations and new business development for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a unit of MediaNews Group Inc. that owns the Daily News, tried to broker a meeting between the new publisher of the Daily News. Tracy Rafter, and the utility.

"Trust me," wrote Lancaster in a February e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by the Business Journal, "having this meeting will go a long way to improving relations between LADWP and the Daily News. Having this meeting will motivate the publisher and editorial staff to better understand your issues, services and the challenges you encounter in serving your customers."

Citing his past experience as mayor of Covina, Lancaster wrote, "I am on your side."

Jerry Gewe, chief operating officer of DWP's water services and the recipient of Lancaster's initial note, said no meeting resulted since the Daily News has not let up on what he characterized as slanted coverage of the department and unfair editorial tongue-lashings.

Lancaster is involved in selling special advertising sections for all eight newspapers in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, including the Daily News. His effort to mend relationships came as the Daily News was trying to get the DWP to advertise in its annual Earth Day special section, published on April 22. In past years, the DWP has spent from $7,000 to $10,000 in the supplement to publicize its conservation programs.

"We have yanked our advertising. We do not feel like putting our dollars into something where we subsidize people who are biting us," Gewe said.

Editors generally bristle at any suggestion that their news coverage is influenced by commercial considerations and the Daily News is no exception.

"The Daily News under (Editor) Dave Butler will never let an advertising issue get in the way of good news coverage," said William Dean Singleton, MediaNews Group's vice chairman and chief executive, who said the correspondence had not been brought to his attention.

Butler, who did not return calls, is also executive vice president in charge of news for Los Angeles Newspaper Group.

Singleton said he didn't see any ethics issue emerging as the result of an ad salesman trying to gain favor with a client, and that there is always a "brick wall" between news and advertising operations.

"I would not stand for advertising and news having anything to do with each other," he said. "I've lost millions of dollars in advertising where an advertiser wants to control content."

Rafter did not return calls.

"We haven't been patsies to anybody," said Managing Editor Ron Kaye, who said he was unaware of Lancaster's overtures to DWP. "Are you asking me about whether something has influenced the work I do? I can say with every fiber of my being that there has been utterly no influence on me or editorial side of this paper."

The Daily News has been aggressive in its coverage of DWP for years, and since March 31 alone has published at least six stories on DWP above the fold on its front page.

On April 29, a two-deck headline blared, "DWP Hid Rate Hikes Before City Hood Vote." The story detailed what was characterized as the intentional suppression before the 2002 vote on San Fernando Valley secession of the need for a rate hike to finance a $2 billion program to upgrade DWP's water infrastructure.

Gewe called that coverage unfair, saying that former DWP General Manager David Freeman had declared six years ago that water rates would need to be hiked to replace aging pipelines and water mains.

Along with the news coverage, Gewe pointed to the tone taken on the editorial page.

"Duped. Tricked. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Betrayed," wrote the Daily News in an April 29 editorial headlined, "Lying Shame."

"It doesn't matter which word you use," the paper editorialized, "it all boils down to the fact that city utility officials have been perpetrating a fraud on the people of Los Angeles, and they've been doing it for a long time."

The paper's editors and reporters, said Gewe, "haven't given us a fair shake. It's not just editorials, but also the slant on reporting where they look for targets to attack in order to sell newspapers."

Despite the tenor of the news coverage, the sales overture could do damage, said Aly Colon, ethics group leader and diversity program director at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla., journalism think tank.

A guiding principle for a news organization is to "act independently" in evaluating and gathering news, Colon said. "Anything we say or do that compromises that in any way, or raises questions, raises the risk of undermining our credibility."

In this case, he said, "Clarification may be in order, or helpful. It raises questions about what people are going to think."

Asked if he felt the effort could have undermined the credibility of the paper, Lancaster declined comment.

Lancaster, whose responsibilities also include the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Whittier Daily News, said he floated the idea of the meeting when he grew tired of getting an earful from DWP managers about coverage in the Daily News.

"I remember Jerry Gewe informing me he was not pleased with some of the editorials that were published last year regarding LADWP and as a result backed out of participating in some of our environmental publications," Lancaster wrote in an e-mail to Frank Salas, DWP's acting general manager, in reference to special advertising sections produced by the news chain.

"LADWP hasn't been satisfied with the way editorial has covered issues," Lancaster said in an interview. 'Tm just trying to improve things."