Endorsement dilemmas

Political endorsements are one of the most interesting — and difficult — things we do in the Opinions Section at The Enterprise.

We do them because we want to help readers if they’re wavering on a particular race. Yet the process is not easy. We interview the candidates, usually in person but sometimes by telephone. That takes up a chunk of time. No matter how we decide, half the candidates will be angry with the outcome. It would be simpler to come up with some sanctimonious reason to stop doing endorsements, as big papers have done in other cities. We think our readers deserve that commitment from us.

This year, we endorsed 11 Republicans and four Democrats; so much for being part of the liberal media. At the state and congressional level, good Democratic candidates are hard to find. We couldn’t uncover any this time, and in some races we were looking hard for a reason not to back the GOP incumbent. Ironically, in Southeast Texas, strong Republican candidates — or even any kind of Republican candidates — are rare. Locally, however, the only Republican we backed was state Rep. Mike Hamilton.

Sometimes, it’s hard to decide between two good candidates — as in the race between Randy Shelton and Rick Williams for judge of the 279th District Court in Jefferson County.

Some races are slam dunks. The Democratic opponent of U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady is a flake, and his Web site proves it.

Sometimes, you have two candidates with drawbacks — the race between Mark Allen and Janet Cherry for Jasper County judge. In that race, we had to withdraw our initial backing of Cherry because we didn’t know about her back taxes. Ouch. We shifted to Allen even though he had a role in a post-hurricane spend-a-thon.

We aren’t naïve enough to think that we are kingmakers. Endorsements from a newspaper — or a union or chamber of commerce — probably help a candidate a little. That’s it. They don’t sway more than a few percentage points in the vote. Clearly, however, that can mean the difference in some races.

If we helped you decide a contest, that’s great. If you think we’re full of beans, that’s OK too.

Journalism by the numbers

To say journalists in general are bad at math would be misleading and prejudicial. To say it wasn't the best subject for many in school would be accurate.

That’s why the headline at the top of Thursday’s front page made reference to a 27-percent raise for Beaumont firefighters. That’s also why we are running a correction on that headline tomorrow.

The firefighters' raise, as currently set, will be 9 percent per year for three years. Three times 9 is 27. Unfortunately, that’s not an accurate reflection of the facts.

The firefighters are set to get a 9 percent raise the first year. Their second year raise will be based on 9 percent of their then-current, increased salary; and their third-year raise will be based on 9 percent of that increased salary.

So, you get it. The raise will be more than 27 percent. Just how much bigger I will leave for the math majors at Lamar University. (How 'bout it LU profs, a tiny bit of extra credit work for those students?)

Dilbert didn't die; he's just delayed

Welcome to BeaumontEnterprise.com’s newest blog offering, Inside The Enterprise: Editors’ Blog, where readers can get a glimpse into the potentially frightening minds of senior editors and maybe come to recognize that we really aren’t bad people.

True journalists, for those of you who might think that is a dirty word, are among the most thoughtful, concerned, introspective people you might encounter. We don’t always do the right thing, but we always think about it and talk about it – a lot – and we always try. When we fail, we try to own up to it, learn from it and move on.

That said, you should know we made a mistake today. At least one that we know about. Unfortunately, it’s not all that unusual. As Reader Representative at The Enterprise, I often get word about our mistakes, try to figure out how we made them, chase down the correct information and get correct information in the paper.

That might seem like five minutes’ work. Some days it is. Some days, it’s less. Some days it takes hours.

Today’s mistake is fairly blatant, though not devastating. We published the wrong Dilbert comic strip on the cover of our business section, page page 10B. When I opened the newspaper at home this morning, I thought it looked vaguely familiar. I checked the date and screamed.

Most observant people can spot the mistake quickly. Dilbert, like the rest of the comics in The Enterprise, comes from a provider called a syndicate. Syndicated material – created by someone outside our staff and distributed to many newspapers -- always carries a release date. In the case of columns such as “Dear Abby” and “Heloise,” the reader never sees that date. On comics, it is printed somewhere inside or alongside the comic. Today’s Dilbert plainly says 9-18-06 instead of 10-18-06. We republished the comic that appeared on Sept. 18.

It happened because it comes in a computer file and because we are human. We try not to make mistakes, but we accept that we do.

So, how are we going to fix this? My suggestion, accepted by the editor, Tim Kelly (as opposed to an editor, who could be one of several people), is to publish a correction in the usual place (page 3A or 4A) and to print the Dilbert that should have been in the paper someplace else (in this case on page 4B, which is the nearest available space to the business section, where Dilbert always runs.) Thursday’s page 8B, the Business section lead page, will feature the Dilbert that is supposed to be there.

My logic in making this suggestion is:
-- Dilbert is funny and everybody wants to see the strip they missed.
-- Customers paid to see a Dilbert comic strip they didn’t get to see.
-- We have no alternative means to show the missed strip to customers because we are contractually forbidden to post it on our Web site.

I’d love to know how many of you noticed our mistake and what you think of our resolution. Your comments can help keep us on the right track – or steer us off in another direction if you think we are wrong. Please, feel free. Talk to us.