Welcome back to this weekly Post readers’ forum of second-guessing, Monday morning quarterbacking, shooting the messenger, biting the hand that feeds, and witty observations from the fans of this daily miracle along with my own occasional rant. We’ll reach back and catch up by airing some thoughtful criticisms that, along with staff comments, may offer more light on how the newspaper works. For starters, Doris Davidoff wrote on Sept. 3:
“I was very disappointed and annoyed this morning when I opened the Accent section to Page 2 (the first thing I read after the comics each day) and found that you had truncated both advice columns for today. Prior to the death of Ann Landers, you used to run four advice columns at the top of Page 2. I was disappointed when you dropped to just the two columns, but at least you were printing a full column for each slot.
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“I had to go online to find the rest of today’s column,” she said, “and I shouldn’t have to do that when I subscribe to a newspaper that supposedly carries those columns.
“Believe it or not, there are many of us readers who are not particularly enamored with the whole Man Panel gimmick, but today you gave it the vast majority of Page 1 and almost all of Page 3, far more than it deserves in the opinion of this group. But, why did you have to ‘steal’ space from very popular columns by moving the ‘Best Bets’ piece into their location, thereby taking away some of what should have been included in these regular columns that people subscribing to other newspapers got to read and we didn’t?
“Please don’t ‘mess’ with these columns to give extra space to other areas that are not necessarily of interest to all your readers,” said the “regular reader of the PBPost (but a disappointed one today).”
She and others may be happy to hear that shortening columns in such manner is not standard procedure. “I agree that we shouldn’t truncate popular columns,” said Features Editor Nicole Neal. “Occasionally, we have to, but it should be a rare exception.”
* Doris and Phil Davidoff may have been questioning, “That’s news?” upon sighting Friday’s headline, “Poll: O.J.’s support among blacks waning.” Or perhaps only I had that reaction. But the title seemed to underscore the Boynton Beach readers’ earlier June 19 e-mail:
“We have been following your Newsmakers column for the past couple of months and have a problem with it. In almost all cases, the items included are not about true ‘newsmakers.’ They are almost all about celebrities and/or athletes.
“Today’s column, which is better than most of them, is an example. You have an item about Michael Jackson and the man who created the Backstreet Boys. Even your item about a former French presidential candidate is about her personal life (not great important news to the rest of the world). The only real newsmaker item is the one about Salman Rushdie. But, this is at least one more ‘news’ item than usual.
“Our culture is currently obsessed by celebrities and athletes, but please don’t label them newsmakers unless they are truly making news. We highly recommend that you rename that column ‘Celebrity Corner’ or some such title. Or, if you want to keep it as Newsmakers, then please at least sprinkle a few politicians, scientists, activists, business leaders or other types of people who make news that affect the rest of us as opposed to gossip.”
As I told Post Managing Editor Bill Rose when I asked about it back then, I didn’t buy their limited definition of the column, but I did appreciate their point that it often seemed too celebrity-centric. He described the editors’ philosophy:
“Yes, the Newsmakers column frequently includes celebrity news,” Mr. Rose said. “But it also does include other items. Celebrity news is still news. It may be the kind of news you don’t like, but it is still news. We tend to put most of the celebrity news that needs to run in the A section into the Newsmakers column. I don’t think that requires that we change the name. Readers have known the column by that name for a long time and know where to find it and what it contains.”
* Despite a reader’s recent lament, the paper did not print his rebuttal of a letter that rebutted an Accent column. How long to let such debates continue becomes an easier call when other letters are queuing to get in. So one can imagine the editors not republishing a letter that another reader deemed so valuable that it should reappear for those who may have missed it. Said Letters Editor Chris Felker:
“The suggestion that we reprint that letter, while a nice thought, unfortunately can’t even be considered because we have such limited space for the letters. The competition to get a letter published in the paper already is fierce, so running one that already has been in the paper wouldn’t be a very popular thing to do even for such a good purpose (and, in fact, it’s a gaffe when that happens).
“Readers who enjoy Internet access, though, can always read any letter online for up to 30 days after publication. Our Web department’s Clay Clifton says that a link on the Opinion Web page connects to letters from the past week, but all stories from The Palm Beach Post (including the letters to the editor) are live on the site and accessible through a site search. If a user searches for any text in the letter, it should turn up in site search. But the more specific, the better. And searching for a letter-writer’s name should work just fine.”
