This may be insider baseball for most casual readers, but it may also be of value to anyone who works at a place where you have regular or even occasional contact with the media.

The last week has been an experience familiar to reporters and perhaps to organizations as well.

What it goes to prove, more than anything, is that if you want to keep something a secret, make sure you don’t tell anyone about it. And definitely don't tell 200 people.

Here’s the story.

Friday morning, Dec. 9, Bobby Tanzilo, the managing editor on OnMilwaukee, got a tip that 86 percent of the members of the Italian Community Center on hand at a special meeting had voted the night before in support of a plan to sell land to the Milwaukee Ballet.

Since I cover the Ballet, he called me to see if I could get some more information from them on what the plans were for the land.

When I started making calls to the Ballet, they did not respond. In fact, one highly placed member in the organization called and said there was "nothing going on" with the Ballet and the ICC.

Tanzilo posted his story on Friday, and it was a scoop for OnMilwaukee.

The following Monday morning, I had a tip that the Milwaukee Symphony had made an agreement to move into the vacant Grand Theatre on Wisconsin Avenue. I told Tanzilo about it and said I’d work on confirming that story, while also trying to get more details on the Ballet story.

Well, I placed a number of calls on the Symphony move and got no response from anyone until later that afternoon – when Tanzilo called to tell me that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had the story on its website.

Shortly after that, Mark Niehaus, the president and executive director of the MSO, called, and I asked him if they had given the story to the Journal after I started making calls about it.

"We had given it to the paper about a month ago, and they agreed to hold it until we could announce it," he said. "Your calls made us let it out earlier than we had wanted."

He was very nice about the whole thing, and there was no ill will on either part.

In addition, once the story was out, Tanzilo had the opportunity to tour the Grand for his Urban Spelunking series. 

That same day, I called the Ballet again and the chairman of its board to try and get some more details on the purchase of the land. I also called two sources who were at the meeting and who have had prominent positions in the ICC.

Both confirmed the deal with the Ballet.

Both confirmed that there were renderings of the new building shown at the meeting and that the Ballet – which had a representative at the meeting – also presented a short video on the project. Both confirmed that the renderings and video were part of the Ballet campaign to gain approval for the sale from the ICC.

One source also identified the individuals handling the legal work and paperwork for the sale. One source said that the Ballet had asked the ICC members to keep the project a secret until they could make the announcement.

"There were about 200 people at the meeting," one source said. "They asked us to hold any announcement, but with that many people, it’s tough to keep a secret."

I understand why organizations want to announce big developments on their own time. They want to get the biggest bang for their buck possible and hopefully energize their supporters and gain attention from others. I clearly support those efforts.

But there is a journalism side to this, too. Media outlets also want to break stories like this before other outlets do.

To be frank about it, I don’t have a good answer to solving this conundrum of getting information first and allowing organizations to announce big news on their own schedule.

If I worked for an arts organization, I’d fight hard to keep things on my own schedule, too. But working in media, I support the idea of getting accurate information before others do.

One thing I do know, and it’s an old rule: If you want to keep something secret, make sure you don’t tell anyone else about it.