Friends in the newspaper business joked when I took this job that readers would yell at me in the morning about what was wrong and reporters would yell at me in the afternoon if I tried to address it.
“Better you than us,” an assignment editor who sits near me quipped recently on a day when my phone rang so incessantly it seemed just about every Star Tribune reader had put me on speed dial.
But the fact is, I get lots of phone calls from readers who aren’t really complaining. They have insightful observations on our news coverage or about ways to improve a newspaper they already love to read.
This is a part of my day that I enjoy tremendously — hearing from readers about what we should do next or ways we can be more precise with language. Well over 300 readers contacted me in January.
Our conversations have legs. Early each morning I attend a meeting where top editors critique the morning paper and talk about plans for the next day’s paper; I toss readers’ story ideas into that mix. Then, at the beginning of the 4 p.m. news meeting, I report to a larger group of editors about what our readers are saying.
In between those two meetings, I spend a lot of time talking, e-mailing and going out in the community to meet with readers. Here’s a glimpse of what they told me this month:
- Doug Trouten, a journalism professor at Northwestern College in Roseville, gave a careful read to a story that ran last Sunday on a shooting and found the use of the word “victim” in the headline was technically right, but perhaps not the best word under the circumstances. “The story suggests that the man and a companion were both armed and shot first,” Trouten noted. “Since one definition of ‘victim’ is simply ‘one who is harmed or killed by another,’ I suppose the usage is technically correct. But in common usage, the word ‘victim’ suggests a person who is harmed through no fault of their own.”
- In the days after the murder of 13-year-old Pa Houa Yang, the coverage prompted Pa Houa Vang Otterness to send me an e-mail explaining how frustrated she was by assumptions she thought police and media were making about Hmong teens. Vang Otterness was particularly bothered that police classified Yang as a runaway when she was reported missing. She wrote knowingly about the push-and-pull of being a teenager with immigrant parents: “Why is it that when a Hmong teen goes missing, it is automatically assumed that they are a runaway? We Hmong people are not all alike. We are individuals just like anyone out there … . We are … here in America to try to better our lives and teach our children the best we can. The old ways are all that the elders know. And the teenagers want to be Americanized but are torn between what their parents want and what they want. Combining the two is very hard to do. When the Hmong people (or any immigrants) arrive in the United States there are no classes or courses to tell you this is how you live in America … . Everyone in America has come from a place or knows someone who has come from a far off place. Don’t judge any of us until you know where we come from … .”
- Jean Johnson wrote in advance about what she hopes she sees in the coming Minneapolis election coverage: “To top off the list of Minneapolis topics that will see too little coverage, if history is any indicator, are the precinct caucuses and ward conventions, and subsequently the City Council, park and library boards, and the board of estimate and taxation races … . It would be great to see some serious coverage of the city races and issues involved in each one.”
- Bill Nelson was among the readers who told us we did something right. He was delighted with a photo that photographer Richard Sennott took of the Rainy River bridge. “It was a great shot,” Nelson said.
- Robert Ball, a paramedic in St. Louis Park, was troubled to see that a story about a fatal ambulance crash in Greenbush, Minn., used the terms “ambulance driver” and “ambulance attendant.” He wrote that “both crew members are Emergency Medical Technicians, or EMTs, if a police officer is involved in a news story, they’re not referred to as ‘police car drivers’ or ‘police car riders … . ‘ “
That’s just a tiny sample of what readers wanted the newspaper to know in January. Other topics ranged from high school Nordic skiing coverage to complaints of political bias on both the right and the left.
All of those readers enriched the conversations here about how to produce a newspaper that captures the full range of life in Minnesota and beyond. Don’t hesitate to contact me in February if you have a concern, an observation, a compliment or just a bright idea. We welcome them all.
