Perplexed puzzle fans plead for space

Mention September of 2005 and most Southeast Texans will conjure up memories of Hurricane Rita. But in that week between the landfall of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and our own experiences with Rita, another small change came to Beaumont.

In the midst of publishing stories about volunteers helping refugees housed at Ford Park, The Enterprise launched the publication of a then little-known number puzzle called Sudoku.

For the 12 people who have no idea what I am talking about, the puzzle involves a grid with nine spaces in each direction. The grid is divided into nine smaller grids that are three spaces across and down.

Some of the numbers are provided. The object of the puzzle is to fill in the blank squares with the remaining numbers — one through nine — so that each number appears only once in each horizontal line, each vertical line, and each smaller grid.

Leading up to the launch of the puzzle, I tried to familiarize myself with it and learned one vital secret to success — pencil. If you work the Sudoku puzzle, you’re going to erase — a lot.

That first week, and the weeks after Rita, I answered a great many Sudoku puzzle questions. One of the most pressing was: “How do I get the answers?”

We had selected a Sudoku puzzle provider that did not publish answers, but instead, required that readers go to their Web site. That was simply part of the deal.
But we did listen to those complaints and take them to heart.

So, as we made plans for our recent conversion to a new writing and page building computer program at The Enterprise, we discovered the old Sudoku puzzle was not compatible with the way we now are creating pages. It gave us the opportunity to provide our readers with a better product . . . or so we thought.

We found an option that would provide our readers with the answers. We thought we were doing a good thing. At least a couple dozen readers have let us know we failed —miserably. Who knew 81 little squares could cause such uproar?

The new puzzle, in making room to include the answer grid, has smaller squares. We reasoned that would be acceptable because the squares are about the same size as the squares in our crossword puzzle. Our readers told us how wrong we were.

In determining the correct answer puzzle workers make note of options in the open square, eliminating the options that don’t work as they fill in the blanks. Some readers have described our new Sudoku puzzle as “absolutely useless.”

We’ve pondered various options, but as yet have no viable solution to the problem we created.

Be patient and don’t give up on us. We hear you and we’re trying to come up with a resolution.

* * *

One of my jobs as Reader Representative is to handle corrections. Sometimes those errors are obvious and sometimes they are more subtle. Sometimes we even dispute the fact that someone thinks we made an error.

Such was the case when a BISD spokeswoman called to complain about a perceived error in a Sunday, Oct. 18, story saying the cost of the district’s athletic complex rose by $14 million.

The argument was that, since the district figured in inflation and other fees as part of the $388.6 million bond package passed in 2007, that the rise in the cost from $29 million to $44 million was always expected and part of the original issue voters approved.

A check of The Enterprise archives showed, several times, those voters were told, on our pages, that the cost of the complex would be $29 million. Yes, the bond issue included $72 million for inflation and $4.6 million for a regional construction premium, but a 48 percent change for one project seems out of the realm of planned costs.

We chose to stand by our story, because BISD never questioned that original figure before the election.

Meanwhile Dr. Carrol Thomas, BISD’s superintendent is complaining that members of the media are misrepresenting the facts.

Even the media doubted balloon boy

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

We’ve been punk’d.

For those who haven’t been subjected to MTV in recent years, we’ll just say manipulated.

Thursday, when a Fort Collins, Colo., couple called law enforcement authorities to report that their 6-year-old son was aboard a flying saucer-shaped helium balloon soaring high over the mountainous terrain, it attracted worldwide attention.

Newspapers, live television and Internet sites all followed the harrowing journey.

According to an Associated Press story, the balloon traveled more than 50 miles and generated an all-out, five-hour search that included military helicopters, a ground search and even a mounted posse.

The AP story said officials even rerouted commercial aircraft and shut down some flights at the Denver airport. (Imagine how the people whose flights were delayed felt about this.)

When the balloon landed and the boy was nowhere in sight, a search began for his body, thought to have fallen out somewhere along the craft’s path. However, the 6-year-old, Falcon Heene, wasn’t actually in the balloon. Instead he was said to have been hiding in the rafters of the family’s garage during the heart-pounding search.

The world breathed a collective sigh of relief for a day or so.

Then information began surfacing that the whole story seemed a bit off. It didn’t help that the family had participated in the ABC show “Wife Swap.” Twice. That was the first (or maybe second or third) hint that things might be a bit off.

As the AP quoted Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden, the family “put on a very good show for us, and we bought it."

As of Sunday, news reports indicated the whole thing was a plan two weeks in the making, an effort to seal a deal for another reality show touting the father of the family as a “mad scientist.”

Authorities are even looking into the possibility that others conspired with the family to stage the hoax. Criminal charges are pending, and there’s also the issue of the search and rescue costs — about $14,500 just for the helicopters.

Nobody was surprised to learn that the parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, met in acting school in Hollywood.
* * *
How does someone manipulate the media enough to get this kind of attention?

It starts with the authorities. Journalists usually don’t make up stories. We get our information from official sources that we consider to be credible. When people who are experts in this kind of thing tell us something, we generally believe them, at least initially.

There’s also the link to the local Colorado media. Stories, even stories on the Internet, don’t go as global as quickly as this one did unless reporters at newspapers, television stations and Web sites in that vicinity put the news out.

The Associated Press might have an office in Denver, but initial Associated Press reports would have come from local media.

That’s not meant to be critical of either the authorities or the local media. If someone reports something that means a child’s life might be at risk, it is the authorities’ job to act first and ask questions later — which is what they did.

The media followed their lead, though they did manage to get the real story turned around rather quickly.

The incident also serves as a good example of the changing media. Thirty years ago, without the instant news of the Internet, most media would have had time to investigate a bit further before printing or broadcasting the story. Now all we can do is go back and undo the lies we told our readers with explanations of how they happened.
* * *
Continuing on the theme of change discussed in this space last week, we have more changes coming, but if things work the way we hope they will, readers won’t even notice.

The changes we are making involve internal processes concerning how we write stories and produce pages for your newspaper. We hope it will be a smooth transition that will allow us to better serve our readers in a variety of ways.

Don’t hesitate to let me know if you notice problems, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed as we continue our efforts to be the best product we can be.

The Reader Representative line is currently out of service, so call (409)838-2846 if you need to contact me.

New ‘friends’ should know boundaries

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009

My list of “friends” has grown substantially in the last week.

The quotation marks, reflecting the ironic use of the word “friends,” is to make it clear that, while some of these people are actual friends, there also are several I’ve never even met.

Such is the world of social networking. Yes, I’m now out there on Facebook.

Within the next couple of weeks, all the writers and editors at The Enterprise will have established professional Facebook pages in an effort to allow more direct contact with our readers. You might not find out their high school nickname, or what kind of pet they have, but you’ll know about their education and journalistic qualifications and be able to put a face with the names that have become familiar to you.

In my parents’ day, people communicated via handwritten notes and letters, with “long-distance” phone calls limited to emergencies or infrequent special occasions.

Now, though I phone my geographically distant friends and relatives occasionally, I’m more likely to shoot them an e-mail. E-mails are the “letters” of my generation.

Younger people, the age of my young-adult children, don’t even do that. Instead, they are tied into social networks and communicate via texting, Tweeting and Web postings to sites such as Facebook.

That’s why The Enterprise now is stepping across that threshold. We hope to use it as a device to facilitate more communication between our staff members and our readers. Take a look at The Enterprise’s Facebook page or seek out an individual reporter or editor to view their page.

Some staff members are eagerly leaping into what is a familiar medium to them, while others, like me, are gingerly dipping in a toe to test the waters. My immediate concern is, since I don’t have a personal Facebook page, some actual friends have requested to extend our friendship to my professional page in this electronic world.

I know the rules and the boundaries. You’re not going to be reading about my personal life on that page: First, because it’s personal; and second, because I lead a pretty tame life and nobody wants to know how much laundry I did this weekend or what I cooked for dinner last night.

It’s important that my “friends” and those who choose to be friends with other reporters recognize that their names and faces, if not their comments, might be viewed outside their personal social circle.

The hope is that our reporters and editors can use their Facebook pages to establish communities of interest. That might provide sources for specific stories we are pursuing, ideas for stories we might be missing or different points of view that might give us better background or perspective on stories.

Though it is a promising idea, like most other ideas, it’s imperfect, so before you punch the button requesting to join a friend’s list, make sure you know what you are getting into.

* * *
Along a similar train of thought, readers who make on-line comments, call, e-mail or write to staff members in their professional roles need to recognize that those comments might appear in print or on-line. That might be in this column, on our Opinions page or even on the front page.

While, in most of those cases, the readers aren’t identified, and generally aren’t held up to ridicule, interaction initiated by readers concerning newspaper business now is part of the content of some of our products.

We don’t want to discourage any readers’ comments or complaints, but we want them to realize that contact with our staff members carries inherent permission to write about that interaction.

* * *
For those readers who have not yet explored the options available via The Enterprise’s eEdition, our Web site, BeaumontEnterprise.com, now includes a tutorial video to help readers learn how to navigate the edition’s options.

Simply click here to try it out.

We hope it will be helpful for those readers who would prefer to have someone “talk” them through the process of accessing the eEdition.

Also, a few readers have been disappointed to learn that our eEdition, though an accurate representation of the actual pages of The Enterprise, doesn’t include the Sunday comics, Parade magazine or advertising inserts. We recognize those omissions and hope to eventually get them worked out, though the complicated logistics don’t promise a resolution anytime in the near future.

Let the experts explain D.C. voting

Members of a media panel speaking to a group of high school students at a Lamar University event last week had the chance to touch on the information overload that many people find themselves exposed to these days.

Various panelists tried, nicely, to address the difference between credible journalism and the present tendency among some less credible sources to circulate unsubstantiated information with impunity.

Basically, they were telling readers and viewers the same thing I have shared repeatedly — always, always, consider the source when you are seeking fair and accurate information.

Several of the panelists shared their frustration at being told that someone had “heard” a fact somewhere, or that they had read it on the Internet, so it had to be true. Again, I and my fellow media members caution you to not believe everything you hear or read.

A perfect example crossed my computer screen last week and, I think, is worth sharing.

A very frustrated reader e-mailed to complain about the weekly congressional voting record published in The Enterprise on Sunday, Sept. 20.

In that report, a syndicated column compiled by Thomas Voting Survey, we said that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas was not present for the Sept. 14 vote on a Senate amendment (Johanns 2355) which was to withhold Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) funding from the Housing and Urban Development budget.

The e-mail author was very upset with us because she had, independently, researched the subject and, in fact, included information from a Web site showing that Hutchison indeed had been present and had voted in favor of withholding the funds.

She was angry with us, felt our reporting was slanted and thought we should run both a correction and an apology to Hutchison and citizens of Texas.

Initially, the information the writer sent looked so complete and accurate that I was tempted to take her word for our error — but that’s not journalism. That’s part of the reason behind the saying, “trust, but verify” as it relates to journalism.

So, in spite of my trust, I set out to pursue the “verify” portion of that saying.

I ended up speaking to Rick Thomas of Thomas Voting Survey in Washington, D.C. He assured me that the information contained in the voting report we published on Sept. 20 was correct.

However, Hutchison DID vote in favor of a similar amendment on Sept. 17 (Johanns 2394), which involved withholding funding from the Department of the Interior budget.

According to Sen. Hutchison’s Web site, she missed the Sept. 14 vote because it was called shortly before 5:30 p.m. and she was at a scheduled event in Texas. She was monitoring the vote and was “aware that it would pass overwhelmingly, which it did by an 83-7 margin.”

When I spoke to Rick Thomas, he explained that the Senate and House probably conduct more than 1,000 roll call votes each year and that the voting report his organization prepares can only report on a few of those. The ones they report on are the ones they consider most newsworthy: in this case, the HUD amendment because it was the first of the votes withdrawing ACORN funding. He said a dozen or more similar amendments are expected.

Complete information about congressional votes, including archives dating back to 2006, is available from Thomas Voting Survey at this site.

Sen. Hutchison’s official Web site also directs citizens to a site that reports congressional voting, which includes votes even further in the past. The site features legislative information from the Library of Congress. Click on the roll call votes link, which also confirms the votes reported here.

As citizens, it’s important for all of us to keep up with what’s going on in Washington and in Austin, and to keep tabs on what our elected officials are doing. But it’s also important for us to get our information from trusted sources, whether that’s your daily newspaper, or official Web sites that might have more extensive details.

And, to the reader who wrote in, I applaud you for seeking an answer to an important question. We should all be so diligent, and so gracious in accepting clarification of our misperceptions.