Opinion ID: 2192876
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Thailand Incident October 1979

Text: Lyon testified at trial that the crowning blow leading to Hubbard's termination was a trip Hubbard made to Thailand in October 1979, together with his later efforts to transmit pictures he took on that trip over the UPI wires. Lyon testified that he believed Hubbard's trip violated UPI policy because it was a freebie [2] and because, in transmitting his pictures of Thailand, Hubbard engaged in advocacy journalism. [3] Hubbard became a volunteer for the American Refugee Committee (ARC) in the fall of 1979. The ARC is an organization based in Minneapolis which sends medical teams to Thailand and Cambodia to aid Cambodian refugees. In October 1979, the ARC decided to send a group of medical personnel to Thailand in November, aboard a charter flight sponsored by the U.N. Hubbard wanted to accompany the team and help in the effort by photographing the actions of the American medical personnel. Hubbard therefore contacted a UPI staff member in New York, Bob Schnitzlein, and requested permission to cover the event for UPI. Schnitzlein relayed Hubbard's request to Lyon, who responded that Hubbard was not to go. When told that he would not be allowed to go for UPI, Hubbard used earned compensation and vacation time to go to Cambodia and Thailand, on a flight arranged by the ARC. He did not tell anyone in the UPI newspictures operation that he was taking his vacation to go on this trip. Hubbard did not use UPI credentials and did not represent himself to be with UPI during the Thailand trip. He spent 2 weeks in Thailand and Cambodia photographing refugee camps. Hubbard paid for the round trip flight between Minneapolis and San Francisco, and paid a nominal fee for the flight from San Francisco to Thailand. He also paid for his food and accommodations. When Hubbard returned to the United States he called Macchini a few days before Christmas to ask if UPI wanted a series of pictures on Thailand and Cambodia for the central division. Macchini said that he had no need for the pictures in his division, but gave Hubbard permission to call New York. Then Hubbard again talked to Schnitzlein and requested $300 to cover the cost of his roundtrip air fair between Minneapolis and San Francisco. Schnitzlein again consulted Lyon for a decision. Lyon assumed that Hubbard had violated Lyon's earlier decision and had gone to Thailand on UPI time, and instructed Schnitzlein to tell Hubbard no. Schnitzlein then called Macchini, and Macchini called Hubbard and told him that New York was not interested in the pictures. Hubbard asked Macchini if the lack of interest was because of his request for $300, and Macchini told him that he didn't know anything about any $300. On Christmas Eve, Hubbard moved a series of pictures from Thailand over UPI's wire without checking with any of the management personnel who had previously rejected his offer. Hubbard assumed that the reason UPI did not want his pictures was that he had asked for $300 expenses, and Hubbard was upset because he felt this was an inadequate reason to refuse to carry pictures of an event which he considered very important. Hubbard gave an additional reason for moving the pictures, which was that he felt all they were attempting to do was squash my career and squash any attempt I made at trying to better my career. He also said he had a concern for dying people. On December 28, Hubbard again transmitted pictures of the Thailand camps over the UPI wire, again without checking with Macchini, Schnitzlein or Lyon. As soon as Macchini came to work in the morning of December 28 and saw the two pictures that Hubbard had moved, he became infuriated and immediately ordered a mandatory kill on the pictures. A mandatory kill is an instruction to the client not to use a picture, and it is issued only rarely when there is some misrepresentation, or a wrong caption or wrong identification. As soon as he had issued the mandatory kill, Macchini called Lyon and told Lyon what he had done; Lyon agreed with his actions. When Hubbard saw the mandatory kill he was shocked; he testified that it embarrassed him to an extreme degree in a professional sense, and affected his physical health.