One reason newspapers print opinions is to promote discussion of public issues. That works pretty well, and generates some heat, based on what I hear constantly from Bee readers.
A few readers want to argue about what an opinion is, who has a right to hold one and where it should appear — if at all — in the newspaper.
A small portion of readers insist the opinions in the newspaper should match their personal opinions, whether it is that George Bush is a great president, Gray Davis is a great governor or that Jerry Rice looks good in a Raiders’ uniform.
Almost no one objects when the newspaper prints an opinion they agree with. Given people’s strong feelings about newspapers, it is not easy to provide a forum for an exchange of all ideas, particularly conflicting ideas. Most modern newspapers try to offer a public soapbox even though it is not, as some readers insist, a requirement for a free press.
Today, most newspapers have decided providing an open forum is good for business, and most readers and journalists believe it is the fair thing to do.
Keeping discussions going in the community is what seems most important to me. The Bee tries to accomplish that in several ways.
Editorials, statements of opinion of the newspaper labeled “Our Views,” are the most obvious. Editorials are published on the Opinion page in the back of the Metro section six days a week, and in the Forum section on Sundays.
Editorials should prompt discussion of public issues and offer a point of view on matters of importance. They may try to influence public opinion.
No readers, including Bee employees, are required to agree with the opinion of the paper. Editorials are not signed by individual writers because they represent The Bee’s opinions, not those of one individual. The decisions about editorial positions are generally arrived at by consensus by the editorial board members, drawing on expertise of individuals inside and outside the newspaper. The process is more collegial than autocratic at The Bee.
The Op-Ed page
“Other views” are offered readers every day on the page opposite from the editorial page, called the Op-Ed page. Those views, usually by columnists or syndicated or freelance writers, may represent any point of view. Bee columnist Dan Weintraub expresses his opinions on a wide range of issues, as does columnist George Will and many others. You will read the views of people in Washington, D.C., and Texas, Boston, California and New York, and many points in between.
Political cartoons prompt reactions or poke fun at politicians and events. They are rarely gentle, and often provoke the strongest reader responses.”
Letters to the editor provide a chance for readers to speak up, agree or disagree with the editorials, columnists or each other, or comment on events. The Bee receives about three times more letters than it has space to run, even though the space was recently enlarged.
Columnists appear in every section of the paper and offer a variety of opinions on a wide range of subjects. They tell the coach how to run the team, the governor how to run the state and restaurant customers where to eat or what wine to drink.
Whether you like Dan Walters or Margie Lundstrom may depend on the opinions they express, the questions the raise or the way they tell a story. But you know it is their voices you are hearing when you read their words.
So long as all this opinion is clearly labeled or placed, I have no problem with any of it.
Write that letter
As ombudsman, I receive a lot of calls and mail from people who want to voice disagreement with editorials or columns. Go ahead, I tell them. Write a letter to the editor. Let your opinions be known. Join the debate.
Some do.
Some don’t want to put their name on their opinions in public or compete for space. And others just want to vent.
I can provide a little sympathy, some encouragement and directions. The public forum is there for you to use.
It is not the ombudsman’s role to decide whose opinion is right, and whose is wrong.
The idea behind providing a forum is not to make everybody happy. It is to allow community voices to be heard.
Opinions have a place in the newspaper. And in reality, opinions have several places in the newspaper.
Trevor, not Francis
Little stuff drives readers crazy, or, in a few cases, amuses them enormously:
- A Bee correction last week set straight a caption on a photograph in The Bee which had identified the person as Arlene Francis, but it wasn’t. Then The Bee reported that the Associated Press could not identify the mystery person in the photograph. Readers by the dozens knew the picture was of Claire Trevor, Academy Award winner for her role in the film “Key Largo.” One reader sent in three other photographs of Trevor, who died last April in Newport Beach. “Shame on the AP,” the reader said. Another reader was a bit more understanding: “Hey. You can’t be right all the time.”
- An advertisement appeared for a rodeo in Reno which begins June 16, and, according to the ad, ends on June 14. Stick around till the 24th, the reader suggested.
- A Metro story at mid-week referred to a person as a “former female correctional officer.”
- A headline on Page B7 in a recent edition spelled “prisoners” as “prisiners.”
- A Forum story appeared which, although it continued at length across the bottom of a page, was missing all the bottom lines of type. “I wanted to know!” the reader said.
- An article on cruelty to animals, cats in this case, described in graphic detail exactly how the person was cruel. “I don’t want to know every blasted detail,” the reader wrote.
- An unintended change in the Cryptoquote puzzle type crammed the letters so close together it was difficult (or impossible) to solve. The caller suggested editors envision the people in a local nursing home, where he volunteers, trying to figure this out. (A fix was in the works.)
- A page layout placed the answers to one crossword puzzle on the back side of the other crossword last Sunday, which meant a husband and wife could not follow their routine of companionable puzzle-working.
- A headline made a humorous pun on the words “Wounded Knee,” which was, as a reader pointed out, “a genocidal incident” and not a fit subject for humor.
- A typographical error in numbers in a chart about the stock market rendered the comparisons useless and the percentages incorrect.
If you think some of these concerns are small, consider these comments from the readers. “Errors like that [a typo in a chart] make one question the validity of the entire article.” And, “It is these consistent silly mistakes [the wrong identification of the movie star photo] that tend to shake my trust.”
Things readers liked
But then, there was some good news from readers.
Last week’s changes to the weather page met with approval from several folks. “Jackson is now on the weather map,” an appreciative Mother Lode resident wrote.
Sandy Louey’s Metro article about a father with Lou Gehrig’s disease was beautifully done, according to a reader who volunteers to raise money for research, and the photographs by three Bee photographers were very touching.
The Pete Wilson article in Forum was excellent, according to a reader who agreed with Wilson’s take on the energy crisis.
The Critic’s Choice feature in Ticket Magazine, which reports on several film critics’ views on a single picture, is a favorite of reader Gigi Stevenson. (It was crowded out last week but will be back.)
