American Idol fans want more
Another letter from a reader:
Sir, I have been wondering why the L-E doesnt have coverage of American Idol the day after the competition. I have seen papers in other cities and they at least have wire service stories thatgive us updates. I know you cover Idol online but I like the print version of your newspaper. I believe that this morning we should have gotten the whole story on last night instead of having to go online. The show ended at 9 pm so there is no excuse. I expcet better things from a paper with such a long tradition.
Even Fox TV gives us Idol updates early in the morning. We ought to be able to get it from the newspaper. TV is fine but I love print newspapers and want to trust them for my updates.
And our answer:
Thank you for the note. We make news calls every day for our 100,000-plus readers, and that will by necessity leave out some news. We have a reporter, Sonya Sorich (click here) who has written several dozen Idol stories and does a great blog online, so we certainly consider the series a high-interest item. On this particular day, our news editor found other news to be more compelling and important (dare I say interesting) to our readers, so he made a call. I realize you disagree with the decision, but I trust there were other news or entertainment items in the paper that were of value to you. . . Thank you for reading the paper.
Ben Holden
Monday, March 17, 2008
Race IDs in the newspaper
Race identification in the newspaper
Every few months we get calls from readers who insist that we’re withholding essential information when we fail to specify the race of a crime suspect. Two stories currently in the news, involving the slayings of two college women, have brought the debate to the forefront again. This from editor Ben Holden:
Effective about six months ago, we do not run the race of criminal suspects at large unless we believe the value of the description to the community outweighs the likelihood of prejudicial behavior toward innocent citizens. In general, we have instructed reporters and editors to omit race unless the description provides at least: (1) Some unique, immutable identifying characteristic (i.e., scars, tattoos, unusual height or weight); or (2) A "complete" description (which we define as approximate height, weight and race). Generally, this allows us to print most descriptions. Only the overly vague description – “white man in a blue pickup truck” or "black man wearing dark clothing" – will be disallowed.
Every few months we get calls from readers who insist that we’re withholding essential information when we fail to specify the race of a crime suspect. Two stories currently in the news, involving the slayings of two college women, have brought the debate to the forefront again. This from editor Ben Holden:
Effective about six months ago, we do not run the race of criminal suspects at large unless we believe the value of the description to the community outweighs the likelihood of prejudicial behavior toward innocent citizens. In general, we have instructed reporters and editors to omit race unless the description provides at least: (1) Some unique, immutable identifying characteristic (i.e., scars, tattoos, unusual height or weight); or (2) A "complete" description (which we define as approximate height, weight and race). Generally, this allows us to print most descriptions. Only the overly vague description – “white man in a blue pickup truck” or "black man wearing dark clothing" – will be disallowed.
Why registration
Why have we become so strict about user registration?
We’ve received dozens of complaints about the new user registration policy on Ledger-Enquirer.com. The policy changed in January, and frequent visitors to the site were frustrated that they were suddenly asked to share personal information before viewing content on the site. While we’re still experimenting with how many pages we will allow readers to view before we make them sign on, we strongly believe that registration makes the site better. And here’s how we explain it in e-mails to our readers.
We are asking for information about our audience so we can better understand who comes to our site and where they come from. The few questions we ask are just to get a better idea of who is coming to our site.
In addition, we hope we will be able to help weed out racist, vulgar and otherwise inappropriate comments. We’ve found that if people are asked to register, they are less likely to post the ugly stuff that offends everybody else. And, as you may have noticed, we’re getting a lot of this. Most newspaper web sites require user registration, and many of them seek considerably more information than we do.
We are not trying to limit access nor will we sell this information. The information gathered is for our purposes only.
We’ve received dozens of complaints about the new user registration policy on Ledger-Enquirer.com. The policy changed in January, and frequent visitors to the site were frustrated that they were suddenly asked to share personal information before viewing content on the site. While we’re still experimenting with how many pages we will allow readers to view before we make them sign on, we strongly believe that registration makes the site better. And here’s how we explain it in e-mails to our readers.
We are asking for information about our audience so we can better understand who comes to our site and where they come from. The few questions we ask are just to get a better idea of who is coming to our site.
In addition, we hope we will be able to help weed out racist, vulgar and otherwise inappropriate comments. We’ve found that if people are asked to register, they are less likely to post the ugly stuff that offends everybody else. And, as you may have noticed, we’re getting a lot of this. Most newspaper web sites require user registration, and many of them seek considerably more information than we do.
We are not trying to limit access nor will we sell this information. The information gathered is for our purposes only.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Why we do some of the things we do
Why do we block content on the Web site?
This e-mail came to us over the weekend.
I understand that your online news section has a disclaimer allowing you to do most anything you want as far as editing, deleting etc. any comments posted…
Starting late last week several of us noticed that a filter was now in place on your system that would no longer accept post[s] that included the name of a nationally know televangelist. In addition, almost any derivative of this public figures name or his ministry was rejected by this filter. In addition almost every post concerning this public figure or the ministry he oversees was deleted, while other messages that are offensive to many were left up… Your paper has made the decision to print both literally and in electronic form stories concerning this public figure and his ministry. In addition you have printed a number of "Letters To The Editor" concerning the same subject. However, your online editor will not allow comments concerning the subject. We would like some help understanding this decision.
And here’s the response from executive editor Ben Holden and senior editor Jeff Hendrickson:
First, all we reserve the right to delete or decline publication of any content, as we see fit. But in this case, the comments about Cascade Hills and Bill Purvis [in response to a story published Dec. 1] were no longer moving the conversation, debate or not, forward. They were simply ongoing anonymous postings. People can continue to respond to our coverage of Cascade Hills. They just need to do it in another format – either as a Letter to the Editor, which requires a name attached, or in Sound Off, which may or may not run, depending upon available space. The anonymous postings online were deterring other people from coming to our site to post or read the posts.
This e-mail came to us over the weekend.
I understand that your online news section has a disclaimer allowing you to do most anything you want as far as editing, deleting etc. any comments posted…
Starting late last week several of us noticed that a filter was now in place on your system that would no longer accept post[s] that included the name of a nationally know televangelist. In addition, almost any derivative of this public figures name or his ministry was rejected by this filter. In addition almost every post concerning this public figure or the ministry he oversees was deleted, while other messages that are offensive to many were left up… Your paper has made the decision to print both literally and in electronic form stories concerning this public figure and his ministry. In addition you have printed a number of "Letters To The Editor" concerning the same subject. However, your online editor will not allow comments concerning the subject. We would like some help understanding this decision.
And here’s the response from executive editor Ben Holden and senior editor Jeff Hendrickson:
First, all we reserve the right to delete or decline publication of any content, as we see fit. But in this case, the comments about Cascade Hills and Bill Purvis [in response to a story published Dec. 1] were no longer moving the conversation, debate or not, forward. They were simply ongoing anonymous postings. People can continue to respond to our coverage of Cascade Hills. They just need to do it in another format – either as a Letter to the Editor, which requires a name attached, or in Sound Off, which may or may not run, depending upon available space. The anonymous postings online were deterring other people from coming to our site to post or read the posts.
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