This is the time of the year for reflection, introspections, setting accounts with oneself and with one’s own conscience. With this in mind, while perusing my computer, I suddenly felt enormous empathy for Robert L., a gemologist from Texas who publishes a newsletter for a small, select readership – not all that dissimilar to Diamond Intelligence Briefs. In his latest issue, this man included a small, harmless write-up about how a grading laboratory discovered that, some seven years ago, it made a mistake and had omitted noting on a report that a certain stone had been HPHT-treated.

Given the millions of stones graded by this lab, or any lab for that matter, genuine and honest mistakes do happen. When a mistake is made and the parties involved accept responsibility, endeavor to mitigate damages, and compensate for a mistake’s financial loss, there is really no news story. At least not from our perspective. After we read Robert’s article, we informally checked with the lab, which confirmed that the reported mistake had, indeed, occurred.

The Story
The Texas gemologist, who was professionally involved in the story, seems intimately familiar with all the facts; has seen all the relevant documents and wrote a rather innocuous story – which he believes accurately reflects the situation. Then something happened. And that “something” has now become the story.

The lawyers of the parties involved got to him. They wanted the article immediately withdrawn from the internet. As this gemologist didn’t want to spend money on litigation, he published a rather sheepish note saying: “I have been made aware of some positive developments regarding our story last week on the diamond grading report issue. Without providing any specific details, the parties involved have informed me that they are involved in amicable settlement negotiations to bring this unfortunate situation to a positive resolution.  In order to allow the settlement negotiations to continue unabated by outside influence we have withdrawn our posting of this matter. We further congratulate both parties for seeking an amicable resolution to what we know has been a difficult situation for all.”

It’s the “congratulation” part at the end of the statement that really puts me off. This gemologist must have been under enormous pressure to have written that last sentence. His article didn’t do any harm. If there was anything factually incorrect in his article – which I don’t know – the parties could have asked that a correction be published. That’s the normal practice in decent journalism. Withdrawing from internet is also not an “effective” solution – when information reaches Cyberspace, it (or a remnant) remains up there forever.

Alarm Bells
Unfortunately, the more trade journalists report factually on issues that should sound strong alarm bells throughout the industry, the more major industry players with deep pockets believe that “threats” are the easiest solution to prevent their publication. The more journalists display resolve in exposing fraudulent or corrupt practices, revealing matters that some interested parties would like to keep in the dark (at the detriment of the industry at large), the stronger these threats become. Unfortunately, more often than not, these threats also work.

We can (and, one day, we probably will) write books about this. Let me just mention a letter that we received earlier this year from a respected law firm. The lawyer referred to certain DIB articles published more than a year earlier that “suddenly” were discovered to be libelous and incorrect. The letter accused us of not having checked with the party about whom we wrote, and made all kinds of threats. What this lawyer doesn’t know, and what the party conveniently ignored (or forgot) is that we have a few dozen e-mails showing that the alleged party had made many corrections within the articles in question and actually saw (and approved) relevant final drafts. What’s even more absurd in this scenario is that we had even gotten a “thank you” e-mail from the party for having shown consideration.

At this point, we don’t want to discuss the specifics, nor the obvious motives behind this delayed reaction, but we will say that the final paragraph of the lawyer’s letter noted that this very letter was protected under the Copyright Act and that quoting from it could lead to further legal action. This shows that those making the threats clearly don’t want it to be known that they have made threats ־ for reasons they probably know quite well.

Another Form of Threats
Diamond Intelligence Briefs doesn’t carry advertising. There are good reasons for this – we don’t want to be influenced. We don’t want our stories to be “colored” or to be “hidden promotions.” Somewhere in our in-box there is a letter from a highly respected and professional U.S. public relations firm, trying to get a trade magazine’s editorial positions changed. This letter contains the line: “Please let me know if editorial might be amenable to this change, as this could certainly affect our client’s decision to advertise with you in the future.”

I am not complaining about a PR agency’s attempts to get the best possible kind of exposure for its clients but, rather, I am illustrating another form of threat that has become far too common and causes enormous anxiety (and antagonism) among self-respecting journalists.

There are situations in which I don’t really know how to proceed. Whenever we publish what we believe is an interesting, newsworthy exposé, we set a full stop behind it and go on to the next story.

Threat versus Reality…
Last year, DIB published an exposé that had interesting ramifications. Some diamantaires who had earlier lost money suddenly found ways to recuperate some losses; some producers explored whether clients may have infringed on best practice principles; and other parties got into legal action. Naturally, we received the appropriate lawyer’s letter with threats. These lawyers were bright – they realized that journalists who have done their homework inevitably possess far more information than what gets published – not to withhold information from readers, but rather out of respect to the company’s commercial privacy when it involves matters not of genuine public interest.

The “covered party” had received ample opportunity to comment on the issues well before publication [and its comments were published], and thereafter lawyers had prepared further responses – which the “covered party” submitted, but not for publication…

Generally speaking, the “injured parties” will not take the risk to actually go ahead with a lawsuit, since in most jurisdictions everything that is stated in an open court can be published and republished by all media. To a journalist, courts offer the opportunity to state without impunity everything that he hesitated to write. At the end of the day, stating the truth is the journalist’s ultimate defense. In some places, the aggrieved party must go about proving that libel has taken place. [For example, in the United States, the person must prove that the statement was false, caused harm, and was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement. In some instances, malicious intent must be proven.]

In the past forty years, I cannot recall any threat in the diamond industry ever carried out [with maybe one exception in the 1970s], but there may always be a first one. But life would be much better if threats would cease to be seen as an option.

Measuring Threat Levels…
This is not a story about Diamond Intelligence Briefs. These are reflections with which many of our colleagues in the trade press and general press are confronted. For instance, an Indian industry leader recently queried an economic journalist about the status of a certain story for which the reporter had been collecting information. The gentleman received an SMS simply stating: “My editor is too scared to run it. Sorry.” It is really quite sad for our industry when journalists are silenced.

At the end of the day, without exposures or fear of exposures, unscrupulous members of our industry will get away with the very things they wish to hide – to the detriment and at the expense of the overwhelming majority of honest, decent and hardworking stakeholders that make up the fabric of our industry.

We have learned over the years that there might be a direct correlation between the seriousness of the exposure and the level of threats. In that respect, the Robert L. threat was minor and the subject matter was just “one mis-graded stone.” When the threats get more serious, it is not the journalist who faces a problem – but rather the integrity of the entire diamond industry.

I can easily give a billion reasons to prove my point. But this can wait. As we said, this is a period of reflection. A period of atonement – in all our centers.