One of the things that most surprised me when I took this job was how much time I had to spend checking on errors in wire copy stories from other news sources. Why that came as a surprise Im not really sure, considering that reporters are human, and humans are subject to err, regardless of where they work.
Sometimes the wire services discover the error and issue an updated story, which we fail to note and use. Occasionally, though, we edit an error into a story.
In June, for instance, a copy editor removed an attribution line from a wire story about the Virginia General Assemblys approval of a state fund to assist former Massive Resistance-era students denied schooling when localities closed their schools rather than comply with court-ordered desegregation. As a result, a quote by a legislator vehemently opposed to the initiative ran together with one from a legislator supporting it, suggesting that the dissenting lawmaker was talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Tuesday, another story (Keyes blasts Ill. Senate rival for slaveholders opinions) misrepresented Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obamas vote as a state senator on an abortion bill.
The original Associated Press story about GOP nominee Alan Keyes said: The conservative former diplomat said Obamas vote against a bill that would have outlawed a form of late-term abortion denied unborn children of their equal rights.
The copy desk edited that line to say: Keyes said Obamas vote to outlaw a form of late-term abortion denied unborn children equal rights. Which completely reversed Obamas vote.
Speaking of Obama, several readers called or e-mailed me Aug. 1 when a Commentary cover story on the Illinois legislator referred to him as Osama in its concluding paragraph.
One caller said that Obamas name is a Muslim-inspired name that people shouldnt be confusing with Osama bin Laden and certainly our newspapers ought not to contribute to that.
The story came from Newhouse News Service and contained the one Osama reference, but we should have caught it.
DUE RECOGNITION: Local television anchor Nicole Livas is mighty proud that she co-anchors two newscasts Fox 43 News at 10 with David Nelson and WAVY News 10 at 5:30 p.m. with Les Smith.
So you can understand Livas annoyance that that fact has been overlooked, twice, by television columnist Larry Bonko.
In a Q&A With Nicole Livas (Anchor follows mothers example) on the cover of Mondays Daily Break, Bonko twice mentioned Livas Fox 43 gig. He even noted that WVBTs 10 p.m. news broadcast had its best household ratings ever (4.9) during the May sweeps.
Livas, who thought Bonkos article was great, left a telephone message for Bonko asking him to henceforth note her 5:30 p.m. co-anchorship on WVBTs sister station. Then she called me to say she had done the same thing the last time Bonko failed to mention her WAVY connection. That was in July, when Bonko tapped Livas as a local television personality with Big Time potential.
Its just important to me, Livas said of her WAVY co-anchorship, because Ive worked so hard and thats a promotion I got in March and there have been a couple of things written since then where it still was not added.
Bonko says it was an oversight and offers his apology.
One more thing: Bonko mentioned Nicoles mother, Becky, was among the first African-American women to have a major role in local TV news when she was with WTKR for eight years.
Actually, Becky Livas was with WTAR-TV many, many years ago before it became known as WTKR. A couple of readers noted that fact. Just as some did when Bonko failed to note that the late WTKR anchor Ed Hughes joined the station back when it was WTAR.
In both cases, readers cited the historical significance of this information. Some sought a correction. I think its more significant in Beckys case, since she was a pioneer, but not worthy of a correction. I equate it to the paper saying someone is a graduate of Norfolk State or Old Dominion universities when, in fact, they graduated when those institutions were local units of other institutions.
ON NOTICE: Several readers have put us on notice that they will check The Pilot carefully during the upcoming Republican National Convention to make sure that our coverage equates with that given the Democratic National Convention.
Like the reader who said The Pilot had four or five days of top-of-the-page beautiful pictures of John Kerry and John Edwards and I was wondering if we would be seeing similar coverage of Dick Cheney and George Bush or will we be seeing pictures of protesters.
I sure hope that we will get the equal coverage of glowing pictures and wonderfully optimistic headlines when the Republicans are having their convention.
Ive assured complaining readers that Bush-Cheney-GOP will have their front-page days later this month. They can count on it.
