The three Maine newspapers would need to establish internal checks and balances to ensure their journalistic independence, said Bob Steele, a journalism professor at DePauw University in Indiana.
Steele runs seminars on media ethics through the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based journalism think tank, and has addressed the Press Herald's newsroom before. He said one idea to protect the credibility of the three papers would be to appoint an internal watchdog to both monitor political and business coverage and to vet complaints.
