Subpoena of reporter over decades-old Chiquita story set aside

Journalist Cameron McWhirter was subpoenaed on Sept. 18, 2020, for testimony and documents related to his reporting more than 20 years earlier for The Cincinnati Enquirer on Chiquita Brands’ activities in Latin America. The legal order was set aside by a U.S. District Court in Delaware in December 2020.

The origins of the subpoena go back to 1998, when McWhirter worked on a special investigative report for the Enquirer about Chiquita, a fruit company based at the time in Cincinnati. The report included an article, written by McWhirter and Mike Gallagher, the lead reporter on the series, about the company’s business dealings in Latin America.

It was later revealed that Gallagher had obtained some of the information for that and other parts of the series by illegally accessing Chiquita’s voicemail system, according to court documents and news reports. The Enquirer fired Gallagher, printed an apology to the company on its front page and paid it $14 million.

A special prosecutor established to look into the incident sought protected reporting materials from Gallagher and McWhirter. While Gallagher agreed to turn over the information, McWhirter cited Ohio’s reporter’s shield law and declined to reveal his sources, he wrote a decade later in an account of the case for the Columbia Journalism Review.

Then, in 2012, McWhirter and the Enquirer were subpoenaed as part of a new lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by individuals from Panama and Ecuador, according to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. The plaintiffs accused several companies, including Chiquita and rival fruit company Dole, of using harmful chemicals that led to personal injuries.

As part of that lawsuit, the plaintiffs in Ecuador requested a 1992 document from Chiquita that they said detailed the company’s ownership of banana operations there. The company contended that the document did not exist, stating that the only evidence for it offered by the plaintiffs was the 1998 Enquirer article, which had since been retracted.

In April 2020, the District Court denied the plaintiff’s efforts to compel Chiquita to turn over the document.

The plaintiffs — in a further effort to obtain the document — then issued the September 2020 subpoena to McWhirter, ordering him to appear at a deposition and to produce documents related to the Enquirer’s reporting for the 1998 article. They also sought information on Chiquita’s land ownership structure in Ecuador, information related to litigation arising from the 1998 Chiquita article and the illegally accessed voicemails. The plaintiffs also subpoenaed the Enquirer.

In an Oct. 27 motion to set aside the subpoena, McWhirter argued that he did not have the information requested, and even if he did, it would be protected by reporter’s shield laws.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas ruled in favor of McWhirter on Dec. 2.

McWhirter did not respond to an emailed request for comment.