Fairness outweighs juicy "news tips"
It’s been a week since the party primary elections, a surprising number of which were decided without the need for April runoffs. Area voters made their choices and, in some cases, made their opinions abundantly clear.
In the weeks leading up to the election I found myself in the unusual role of turning away “news tips” from apparently well-meaning citizens who wanted to make sure we were aware of behind-the-scenes information on several of the candidates for office.
Yes, in every case, we knew about the information readers were providing about candidates. In every case, we chose not to write about that information.
Why? Because it wasn’t news and/or it wasn’t relevant to the election.
Some of the stories had been fully explored in previous elections and served no purpose in being dredged up again.
Some of the stories involved personal issues about the candidates and held no relevance in their suitability for public office.
Others could not be documented or substantiated as truth. There were even some stories that made good cocktail party gossip, but did not deserve the status of being elevated to news.
Although the timing of those news tips was less of an issue, it too was relevant in that candidates affected by news the last few days of early voting leading up to Election Day might not have sufficient time to fairly respond and/or react to any negative news stories.
Not coincidentally, the people offering these story suggestions, in every case, readily acknowledged their support of an opposing candidate and were greatly offended we were not prepared to emblazon our front page with negative stories about that candidate’s opposition.
It’s the same reason we don’t run letters to the editor either supporting or opposing specific political candidates in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
Does that mean we didn’t do our job as a newspaper? We don’t think so. We are called upon, every day, to make decisions about news — what is important, but also what is right and fair.
Allowing ourselves to be used to an unfair advantage in a political battle isn’t right or fair, so we stand behind the decisions we made.
•
In reporting on a new trend in the area last week, we had a few readers raising their eyebrows and others picking up their telephones to complain.
Our BE section included a story about local photographers providing “boudoir photos,” and also taking “trash the dress” photos of brides in their wedding gowns.
A very small front page photo of a woman on a bed appeared on the front page of the paper to promote the inside story. Though she wore lingerie, if we hadn’t made that clear to readers, it easily could have appeared to be a modest swimsuit.
One male reader called to complain because his wife got mad when she caught him looking at the photo. I offered to speak to his wife, but he declined. The section front containing the story also contained modest photos, while an inside page got only slightly more risque.
The related photo gallery on BeaumontEnterprise.com took things a bit further — because that’s what Web features are supposed to do. The Internet is a different media, with different standards. That said, the photos were still pretty tame by Internet standards.
One model asked that we not use her name or face, and we complied. The other said we could use her face, just not her name, which we also did. We didn’t poke a hole in a wall and shoot secret photos. The models who were posing for the photos were well aware we were there, that we were taking photos and that they would appear both in print and online.
It’s important for readers to realize both that — and the fact that we gave readers ample warning about the subject matter to give them the opportunity to simply turn the page if they found the content offensive.
•
Although we’re never happy about errors in the paper, Friday’s contained one of the most dreaded of errors — the Jumble puzzle.
This was the second time since our conversion to a new production system that the Jumble has appeared in gibberish — what I’ve come to refer to as “Martian.”
Several e-mails and multiple discussions Friday morning determined that the error wasn’t caused by one of our staff members, but by a production operator who “punched the wrong button.”
We ran a corrected puzzle in Saturday’s paper.
Then Monday morning we discovered it had happened again.
We are sorry. We’re not happy. We’re working to correct the problem.
My most recent e-mail suggested, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that perhaps they should label the correct button, in large letters, in a bright color, with arrows and stars.
Here’s hoping the message gets through and we don’t disappoint you, our customers, again. Thanks for your patience.
In the weeks leading up to the election I found myself in the unusual role of turning away “news tips” from apparently well-meaning citizens who wanted to make sure we were aware of behind-the-scenes information on several of the candidates for office.
Yes, in every case, we knew about the information readers were providing about candidates. In every case, we chose not to write about that information.
Why? Because it wasn’t news and/or it wasn’t relevant to the election.
Some of the stories had been fully explored in previous elections and served no purpose in being dredged up again.
Some of the stories involved personal issues about the candidates and held no relevance in their suitability for public office.
Others could not be documented or substantiated as truth. There were even some stories that made good cocktail party gossip, but did not deserve the status of being elevated to news.
Although the timing of those news tips was less of an issue, it too was relevant in that candidates affected by news the last few days of early voting leading up to Election Day might not have sufficient time to fairly respond and/or react to any negative news stories.
Not coincidentally, the people offering these story suggestions, in every case, readily acknowledged their support of an opposing candidate and were greatly offended we were not prepared to emblazon our front page with negative stories about that candidate’s opposition.
It’s the same reason we don’t run letters to the editor either supporting or opposing specific political candidates in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
Does that mean we didn’t do our job as a newspaper? We don’t think so. We are called upon, every day, to make decisions about news — what is important, but also what is right and fair.
Allowing ourselves to be used to an unfair advantage in a political battle isn’t right or fair, so we stand behind the decisions we made.
•
In reporting on a new trend in the area last week, we had a few readers raising their eyebrows and others picking up their telephones to complain.
Our BE section included a story about local photographers providing “boudoir photos,” and also taking “trash the dress” photos of brides in their wedding gowns.
A very small front page photo of a woman on a bed appeared on the front page of the paper to promote the inside story. Though she wore lingerie, if we hadn’t made that clear to readers, it easily could have appeared to be a modest swimsuit.
One male reader called to complain because his wife got mad when she caught him looking at the photo. I offered to speak to his wife, but he declined. The section front containing the story also contained modest photos, while an inside page got only slightly more risque.
The related photo gallery on BeaumontEnterprise.com took things a bit further — because that’s what Web features are supposed to do. The Internet is a different media, with different standards. That said, the photos were still pretty tame by Internet standards.
One model asked that we not use her name or face, and we complied. The other said we could use her face, just not her name, which we also did. We didn’t poke a hole in a wall and shoot secret photos. The models who were posing for the photos were well aware we were there, that we were taking photos and that they would appear both in print and online.
It’s important for readers to realize both that — and the fact that we gave readers ample warning about the subject matter to give them the opportunity to simply turn the page if they found the content offensive.
•
Although we’re never happy about errors in the paper, Friday’s contained one of the most dreaded of errors — the Jumble puzzle.
This was the second time since our conversion to a new production system that the Jumble has appeared in gibberish — what I’ve come to refer to as “Martian.”
Several e-mails and multiple discussions Friday morning determined that the error wasn’t caused by one of our staff members, but by a production operator who “punched the wrong button.”
We ran a corrected puzzle in Saturday’s paper.
Then Monday morning we discovered it had happened again.
We are sorry. We’re not happy. We’re working to correct the problem.
My most recent e-mail suggested, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that perhaps they should label the correct button, in large letters, in a bright color, with arrows and stars.
Here’s hoping the message gets through and we don’t disappoint you, our customers, again. Thanks for your patience.
posted by Sheila Friedeck at 10:58 AM
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