At its 2001 annual conference, the Organization of News Ombudsmen released a survey of readers’ top-five complaints.
Inaccuracy was the Number One complaint, followed by perceived bias and concerns about Page One stories. Next came concerns about not enough local news and complaints about privacy and ethics. Unhappiness with Middle East coverage, unidentified sources and the television listings were among the runners-up of readers most-common beefs.
Star readers’ complaints this past week seem to back the survey. Scores of readers complained about an inaccurate graphic about Caribana last Saturday that said the Caribana parade began at “10 a.m. tomorrow.” Many people showed up Sunday morning and missed the parade, which happened the day before.
One Cambridge woman said she and her husband were in town Saturday but read the paper and went home, returning Sunday at 9 a.m.
“It was pretty disappointing,” she said. “We are very angry.”
On behalf of The Star I formally apologize to everyone who was affected by the error. Art Director Ian Somerville cited “human error.” Staff were supposed to change the wording on the graphic to “today” from “tomorrow” and did not. It was inexcusable, embarrassing and most inconvenient to many readers. Again, The Star is very sorry.
As for bias, several readers accused a piece in Exact Change on Saturday of showing bias against Jewish people. In a scathing commentary about a website for an American Jewish pro-firearms group out of Wisconsin, the last sentence in the piece, expressed disbelief there were “any Jews in Wisconsin” and used a vulgar, Yiddish slang-term for the male anatomy to describe members of the firearms group. This was completely inappropriate, and though meant to be humorous, was in bad taste and lacked religious sensitivity. Hence to all readers, I issue apology Number Two.
As for our Page One story selection, some readers called saying we included too much coverage on the heat wave. Here, I disagree. The torturous weather was unprecedented, the topic of discussion everywhere, affected millions and was highly newsworthy. However, some of our coverage was a bit sensational.
For example, one Page One story read: “While no deaths can be directly attributed to yesterday’s heat, a new warning system says there is more than a 95 per cent chance deaths will occur under such conditions.” Better to have said, in a less sensational manner, “A new warning system says there is more than a 95 per cent chance deaths will occur under such conditions. However no deaths have been directly attributed to the heat so far.”
Ari Rosenberg, of the Consulate General of Israel, complained about The Star’s Middle East coverage citing a headline Wednesday that read “Tel Aviv may skip conference on racism.” “For three thousand years the eternal capital of the Jewish people has been Jerusalem, not Tel-Aviv,” he wrote.
Deputy foreign editor Peter Martyn said the headline originally said “Israel” but when editors noticed, near deadline, that Israel was used in two headlines on the same page, Tel Aviv was inserted. Newspapers often use capitals to mean governments and the headline should have read Jerusalem, he said.
Every week, readers call to complain that the paper is biased in favour of Palestinians or Israelis. The ONO survey showed this was common at almost every paper surveyed. But that makes it no less of a concern.
