The first word we heard about the acquisition of Good Harbor Fillet early Tuesday morning came through an anonymous email that had the practical essence of the story.
The tip said the longtime local seafood processor had been bought by American Pride Seafoods of New Bedford, and that all of its operations and jobs would be moved to that South Coast city.
Within a half-hour or so, staff writer Richard Gaines had tracked down the actual announcement of the acquisition out of Seattle. And within another hour, he had spoken preliminarily with William Stride, Good Harbor's owner and president.
There were some catches. First, Richard quickly found that the purchase of Good Harbor wasn't by American Pride Seafoods, but by the Seattle-based global conglomerate American Seafoods Group, which owns American Pride. And Stride indicated he could only refer any and all calls to a woman at American Pride in New Bedford.
By early afternoon, we had posted Richard's initial breaking news story about the sale on gloucestertimes.com, Facebook/gloucesterdailytimes and @gdtnews on Twitter. He continued to pursue the story throughout the day for the next day's paper.
But there were some important gaps — most notably that we would not be able to answer the most important question on the minds of our readers — namely, what the deal would mean for the 70 or so Good Harbor Fillet workers and the contractors affiliated with the company.
Should we go with the story as we knew it? Should we include the already-sweeping rumors that American Seafoods would be essentially merging the two facilities in New Bedford, and pulling the jobs out of Gloucester?
In the end, Tuesday's online story and the one in Wednesday's Times only reported the acquisition, with company officials saying they had made "no decision" regarding how American Seafoods would "integrate" Good Harbor into the larger corporation.
Why, you might ask, did your community's newspaper not put the Good Harbor jobs first? Hadn't we heard that employees were being told the jobs were going elsewhere? Why would your community's newspaper do that?
Well, yes, we had. But if employees were being told of their future — and we know now that Good Harbor's jobs are, in fact leaving the city (see news story, Page 1) — they weren't telling us that. And even if they did, from whom were the employees hearing that information?
Frankly, unless we could come up with something in writing indicating that job information, I believed it would have been irresponsible to include that speculation in the story.
Further complicating the issue, Kerry Clift, marketing manager for American Pride Seafoods, said "the decision has not yet been made how to integrate the companies." And Stride, in a prepared statement issued in connection with the announcement of the sale, was quoted as saying he could foresee "exciting opportunities for Good Harbor ..."
Usually, during such acquisitions, company officials go out of their way to convey their commitments to a local community if that's the case — and no one from Good Harbor, American Pride or American Seafoods would do that. Plus, Clift's references to "integrating" Good Harbor into American Seafood was troubling, to say the least.
But none of that, in my mind, was enough to go out on a limb with what we were "hearing" — that the jobs were lost. That is, until Richard confirmed the news on Friday.
Our duty, you see, is to let you know what we know when we know it. But, like all of you, we're always aware that "knowing" something and "hearing" it are two different things.
As always, let me know what you think.
Questions? Comments? Is there a topic you'd like to see addressed in a future column? Contact Times Editor Ray Lamont at 978-283-7000 x3438, or rlamont@gloucestertimes.com.
