You might logically expect that after the Senate voted on presidential impeachment the phones would ring off the hook with readers reacting to coverage of this major news event of the year.
This newspaper devoted thousands of words, dozens of stories and photos and graphics to the conclusion of the impeachment trial.
All that journalistic effort, paper and ink generated one phone call and one e-mail to this office.
One anonymous caller was angry that a headline said “Clinton acquitted.” Another said “acquittal was a foregone conclusion,” and the event did not justify a large page one headline.
What really stirred up some Bee readers last week was trying to talk with the newspaper about routine business, and newspapers delivered complete with ink smears, wrinkles, black tape and math deficiencies.
Reader Rex Fisher seemed to symbolize the frustrations of other readers after he ran into barriers inside this well-intentioned newspaper.
He called to talk about a problem, but got caught in one of those telephone merry-go-rounds.
“I think you’re doing a bad job with the printing,” he said, “but there is no way to provide feedback.”
He tried to lodge a complaint about what he felt was a Sports section page rendered almost unreadable by ink stains. So he called the number listed for The Bee operator, who then tried unsuccessfully to connect him to the newsroom. The operator then transferred him to “public relations.” The phone mail message said no one was available from noon till 1 p.m. (it was 10 a.m. at the time).
He then looked in the newspaper for an electronic mail address so he could communicate by computer, but none were listed.
He then found the ombudsman’s phone number and I happened to pick it up.
Luck was involved.
It was bad luck that Fisher’s first call was directed in a wrong direction. That doesn’t happen often. And it was bad luck that he was transferred to an office where everyone was busy. He ended up listening to a phone mail message that provided no help.
Some people would call it good luck that he happened to call my office when I was present, and not on another call or wandering around.
Fisher was not the only reader to find The Bee difficult to deal with. Locating a human being to talk to, even to leave a message, sometimes takes more effort than it should. Some contact numbers and addresses are listed somewhere, but most readers don’t know exactly where to go. They need help.
My personal experience with the customer service personnel who answer most of the thousands of incoming calls at The Bee has been good. They’ve been helpful, polite and well-trained for connecting callers with the right person.
But like most big companies, the Bee communications system has a few glitches.
Another reader tried in midweek to utilize the published telephone number for BeeSearch, a “fee-based reference service” that The Bee advertises is available from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. Unfortunately, the answering machine had been set up in a way that did not allow the caller to leave a message. (For staffing reasons, the phone service is only available 18 hours a week, sometimes less if illness or holidays intervene.)
If an unlucky caller followed BeeSearch’s tape-recorded directions to call Circulation to get a back issue of the newspaper, that recorded message instructed the person to call BeeSearch to pin down the date.
In the newsroom, and elsewhere, the volume of calls can be overwhelming. One columnist told me that some days bring 50 messages, many wanting responses.
It’s a fair bet that the skeleton holiday crew working the early shift was not able to handle every call promptly last week. But I saw them trying.
Fisher suggested one way the newspaper can help readers: print e-mail addresses of Bee people and departments. The San Jose newspaper does that, he said, and that makes it easy to reach almost everyone.
The e-mail addresses of senior Bee editors are published on the Web site sacbee.com but not routinely printed in the daily newspaper. That could be fixed.
Of the 22 Bee executives and editors listed on the Web site, e-mail addresses are shown for only 15. That could be fixed.
Some columnists provide e-mail addresses, and some don’t. That could be fixed.
The “How To Reach Us” box that runs in the first few pages of the front section of the paper every day has 25 department telephone numbers but no identifiable people. That could be fixed.
Entertainment sections, along with Circulation and Classified Advertising, generally do a good job with publishing telephone numbers. Others could mimic that.
And good journalists know a ringing phone must be answered. It might be a Pulitzer Prize calling.
But a little more training to make sure people know when to turn on the phone mail system, and when to answer the phone, might help.
The problems that Fisher’s unfortunate experience highlights stem from limitations, technological and human. The computers in use by most of The Bee’s 2,000 or so employees do not have unlimited access to Internet e-mail. Only a limited number of Bee employees have an Internet address.
And there are limits to staffing.
But it wouldn’t take much ink to print numbers and e-mail addresses every day in every section of the newspaper. Once in a while doesn’t cut it.
And a renewed effort to answer that ringing phone, and clean up the outdated phone-mail messages might convince readers like Fisher that someone really wants to hear what he has to say.
About that ink problem
Complaints seem to be growing about poor print quality, specifically ink smears along the side of pages, tracks created by rollers picking up ink from other pages.
As explained earlier, the climbing costs of newsprint in the past few years led The Bee to narrow the width of the page slightly, which saved money, and the ink began showing up on top of printed words. A fix is expensive, and not imminent.
So far in 1999, this office has received at least a dozen complaints about similar problems, far more than any other comparable period in the past few years.
I checked this page you are reading (the back of Forum). On six of the past seven weeks, paragraphs on the page were difficult to read because of ink smears. One year ago, one page in seven reflected a problem, and it was minor.
The readers I hear from accept the fact it is not sloppiness or human error, but they want it fixed.
Reader Royce Larson had an idea: “Why not have them run an ad in the first column … That way the persistent ink problem will get solved — the advertisers will raise enough hell to get it accomplished.”
Might work.
More math lessons
Unfortunately, the continuing need for math lessons at The Bee was pointed out again by readers.
A recent Associated Press report on commute times in the Bay Area did not explain the numbers adequately, and as a result the story offered more confusion than light. AP acknowledged that, and promised to be more careful.
A Feb. 6 Metro column described a woman as one of nine children, quoted her as having six brothers, and then described her as her father’s only daughter. I suppose if there was a stepfather that might be so, but it was confusing enough for readers to challenge the addition.
A Knight-Ridder Tribune graphic published after the death of King Hussein of Jordan said the king had “five brothers and sisters” and he was “the oldest of four children.” Go figure.
Reader Annette Kalamaras of Fair Oaks asked for “any clarification you can offer.” Well, it was wrong. Graphics from all sources need to be checked for factual accuracy and consistency. They can be edited, and many are, or they should be dumped if questionable.
