Over the past two months, The Times-Dispatch has spoken to the public directly in seven “To our readers” notes, mostly explaining why a news decision was made or how circumstances affected coverage. Likely, the frequency of the editors’ notes will increase in coming months.
The word that has come to be used to describe this sharing with the public is “transparency.” The idea is that the public is encouraged to see through the window of the news gathering and presentation process. In years past, the process was often conducted behind a closed door.
Bill Kovach, formerly with The New York Times, editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and founding director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, explored transparency in a speech he made two years ago to the annual meeting of the Organization of News Ombudsmen.
Journalists, Kovach said, “must be as open and honest with audiences as they can about what they know, how they know it and what they don’t. . . . This transparency . . . signals the journalist’s respect for the audience,” he said. “It allows the audience to judge the validity of the information, the process by which it was secured and the motives and biases of the sources providing it.”
Such openness, he said, is especially “valuable when a community is under stress.”
The Richmond community and others throughout the country have come under increasing stress as the debate accelerates over war casualties, victims of atrocities, Abu Ghraib, al-Qaida, the economy, the November election.
“To our readers” explanations in April and May dealt with publication of pictures of bodies of Americans mutilated by celebrating Iraqis as well as photos of cowering Iraqi prisoners held by American guards in Abu Ghraib prison; with an ill-timed “Doonesbury” comic strip that even elicited an apology from the author; and with less-emotional issues such as how the word “not” was dropped in a sentence and why newspaper delivery was delayed for hours by an electrical failure.
Such explanations are not new. One of the most effective “To our readers” notes was published after the federal building bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995. The T-D published on Page One a color picture of a fireman holding a bloody child. The ombudsman’s office was beset with more than 60 phone calls from complainants. The next day, a “To our readers” note explained the reasoning behind publication and this office received more than 60 phone calls of support.
Back to the prediction at the top of this column of an increase in transparency, editors need to stay aware of the mounting community stress over national and world events and remember not only to explain judgment calls but also to do so concurrent with publication of the article or image in question.
In April, a “To our readers” note told why the editors decided to run a photo of charred bodies of American workers hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq. The explanation, though, was published a day after the photo appeared.
Editors might also consider sharing with readers reasons why they decide not to publish in some instances. On May 21, The Washington Post published 10 pictures it had obtained from a collection of photographs and videos depicting treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. The Post provided the pictures to The Associated Press for distribution to members, including The Times-Dispatch, but none appeared here the next day.
At the news editors’ Page One meeting the previous afternoon, publication of the pictures was discussed. A deputy managing editor said he didn’t regard the Post pictures as that much different from the three photos from Abu Ghraib published previously in The Times-Dispatch. The latest pictures, he said, provided no new information and the wire services article printed on Page One gave adequate descriptions of what the pictures showed. Others agreed.
So there’s a transparent look for T-D readers who saw the photos on television, the Internet or in other newspapers and might have wondered why none appeared in their hometown newspaper.
. . .
Every dog may have his day, but consider a show dog that has had a fabulous run of 29 years.
In 1974, Roy Proctor joined The Richmond News Leader as a copy editor and art critic. Two years later he had become the afternoon newspaper’s arts editor, reviewing movies, theater and visual arts and writing a weekly Critic at Large column. In that column in 1976, he announced the recipients of his first Phoebe awards.
The awards were bestowed on members of the Richmond theater community for best production, best actor, best actress, etc. Awards must have a name – the Oscars, Tonys, Emmys – and Proctor called his award Phoebe, after the family’s poodle, already playing in the Happy Hunting Ground.
Winners received a diamond-shaped, golden certificate, designed by staff artist Tom Bond and embossed with a silhouette image of a properly coifed poodle. After The News Leader merged with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1992, the certificate presentations ended and winners were simply listed in the newspaper.
Proctor left the newspaper stage for retirement this weekend, and today’s Arts & Entertainment section features his 29th and final Phoebe awards list along with his farewell, personal Rialto column.
On May 18, “A Royal Roast of Roy” was staged at Barksdale Theatre. Actress Jacquie O’Connor presided as a comical mistress of ceremonies, and 18 others from Richmond community theater pelted Proctor with caustic or kind remarks. The most hilarious skit of the evening starred actor Scott Wichmann, recipient himself of several Phoebes.
Wichmann disappeared behind a black curtain and then, suddenly, above the curtain popped a hand puppet the size of a giraffe. The long-muzzled, white-and-black spotted face belonged to – Phoebe, herself.
Speaking in a simpering lilt in the manner of some Broadway babes, the Phoebe voice told Proctor that “Roy, dahling . . . I faked my own death” and ran off to New York for a career on stage. Phoebe said she starred there in ” ‘Out, Damn’d Spot!’ – I was Spot.”
Phoebe, now retired in Florida, wanted to know only one thing: “How do I get one of those #!@%* Phoebe awards?”
Too late, Phoebe. You’re history.
