One of the first things I learned in Journalism 101 is that there are two sides to every story. The second thing I learned was that the only thing more important than being fair is being accurate.

David Collins failed on both counts in his April 4 column, “Follow the money at L+M and other nonprofit hospitals.”

As a columnist, Collins is under no obligation to be objective. His readers, however, including those he writes about, are entitled to fairness and accuracy. When it comes to writing about Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, Collins seems more focused on stirring the pot than he does on being accurate or fair.

For example, in last Sunday’s piece, when claiming that L+M pays “a little army of executives salaries fit for modern day health care kings,” he actually has the number of executives wrong. He claims there are “more than a dozen executives” at L+M who “make more than $200,000 a year.” His opinion about those salaries is fine — as long as his facts are accurate. But they aren’t. L+M does not have “more than a dozen” executives. It has nine. That simple fact could have easily been confirmed with one phone call. Or even a visit to the hospital website. Instead, he pulled his information off an out-of-date publicly available document.

There are some other key facts missing regarding the L+M executive team. Again, if Collins had reached out, he would know that today’s hospital executive team is 20 percent smaller than it was a year ago. He would also know that the salaries and benefits of the executive team are less than 1 percent of the hospital’s annual budget. And, more importantly, he would know – which he already should – that the L+M executive team is not overseeing one hospital, it is overseeing two. The president and vice presidents at L+M hold the same position and responsibilities at Westerly Hospital, too.

Since he has become so fixated on the salaries of L+M executives, perhaps he could make an effort to learn how those salaries compare to executives at other Connecticut hospitals. And, with another hospital in The Day’s readership area. Wouldn’t it be interesting to compare salaries of key executives? If Collins has spent so much time looking up L+M information, it’s almost impossible to believe he hasn’t done it with other hospitals. Why not compare? Is he just lazy? Or, do the facts not support his opinion?

The same goes for his other favorite topic – money in the Cayman Islands. As he’s written about in the past, L+M has an insurance captive in the Cayman Islands. To some, that sounds suspicious. But would it change your mind if you knew what other hospitals operated the same way? Many of the names would be recognizable as among the leading health care institutions across the country, all following the same business model, all finding this an effective strategy to reduce the cost of professional liability coverage and to fund patient safety and quality initiatives. This is nothing new. This is nothing suspicious. This is prudent business. One of his columns did explore this, but only in a way that fit his opinion which, again, was not based on all the facts.

Are you sensing a pattern?

Does the hospital have other money in off shore accounts as Collins regularly suggests? Yes. The hospital has endowment and pension funds managed by a group of top investment advisers to colleges, universities, pension plans and other institutional investors who have recommended a broadly diversified portfolio to their clients. Collins has been invited in the past to come in and learn more about this. He’s declined.

In last Sunday’s column, Collins talks about seeing the “glitter of gold” when he drives “past the hospital down New London’s Montauk Avenue.” Maybe next time, instead of driving past, he should stop in.

Michael O’Farrell is the director of communications and marketing at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital and serves as its spokesperson.