Even Giles's critics say that what he did in Rochester was no worse than what was happening at other Gannett newspapers at the time. Giles, they say, simply followed the trend in Gannett--and in American journalism.
"I can't say he was any worse than any of the other Gannett editors," Martel says. "He was very respected within Gannett. I'd be hard-put to say that Giles did [what he did] because of his own policies, but you didn't see him raising a lot of red flags or stamping his feet when Gannett was imposing these cookie cutter approaches to journalism."
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