Maybe it is the summer slump, but according to Bee readers this newspaper can’t seem to generate any new complaints. The calls this week were all about issues which have come up before, but continue to appear and irritate readers who wonder aloud why they see the same old problems again and again.
Take the issue of James and John. A retired Bee editor pointed out, once again, that the newspaper “has perpetuated a long-time error — call it a tradition.” Last Sunday’s Scene article on the Gold Rush said: “John Marshall struck gold at Sutter’s mill.” John Marshall, the editor-turned-reader reminded us, “was a distinguished jurist and chief justice of the United States, but of his carpentry skills we know naught.
“It was James Wilson Marshall who was a carpenter by trade who built the mill for John Sutter at Coloma and subsequently discovered gold in the mill race.”
To be fair, please note that The Bee had not repeated this particular error since last September, and before that only about an average of twice a year. James Marshall gets credit for discovering gold (in The Bee) more often than John.
John Marshalls are everywhere in The Bee. One was indeed a jurist. Another is a local lawyer and another is a 49ers defensive coordinator. But they didn’t discover gold. And the elementary school on Joethe Road is named for James the discoverer not John the jurist.
The moral of this story? Don’t trust the Bee’s clippings to have the right Marshall when it comes to gold.
Too much alleged?
Reader Bryan Quattlebaum is tired of reading “alleged,” and with some justification. “Alleged” has appeared so many times in The Bee I couldn’t figure out how to count the occurrences, but determined that the word appears in some form three times a day, every day, in this newspaper.
“When the Texas woman (the mother who drowned her five children) confessed to the murders The Bee stated that she ‘confessed to the alleged killings.’ This does not make sense to me. If a crime occurs, and a person has admitted to the crime (or witnesses saw the person commit the crime), does the term ‘alleged’ really apply?”
The answer is no, it shouldn’t, but it happens. The Associated Press Style Book says the word should not be used to describe an event known to have occurred, as in the killings mentioned by Quattlebaum, or used as a “routine qualifier.” In that situation, use words such as “apparent, ostensible or reputed.”
But it is the Associated Press, and other wire services, which use the word the most. Sometimes they use it correctly, and sometimes not. A few June and July examples from your newspaper: AP reported an “alleged financial incentive,” the Los Angeles Times wire reported a “wife alleges the charges are trumped up,” The Washington Post reported “at the Harvard Admissions Office, they used to have an alleged philosophy,” and a wire service reported on “an allegation that he paid cash.”
In one local story, The Bee mentioned “alleged victims” five separate times regarding an arrest for child molestation. The District Attorney charged a man, but The Bee used the language to demonstrate the proof had not yet been produced.
The AP Style Book says “the word must be used with great care,” and should specify the source of the allegation. The local molestation story did that, but several wire service stories on a congressman’s reputed affairs have been full of allegations, and the sources have not always been made clear.
Personally, I believe the word shows up too often, even if used correctly. It has become jargon which is not that helpful, and reflects the need for more precise reporting and — at the least — more variety in the language.
Left out Yolo
“Here we go again,” wrote Ralph Finch of Davis, “with the disappearing Yolo County home sale prices.”
Each Sunday The Bee attempts to report home sale prices by zip code for the region, but last Sunday Yolo was missing despite the fact the Business Section ran a full page of recent home sales. (That’s a lot more than were being published in past months and years.)
“I guess,” Finch said, ” because Yolo is near the end of the alphabet it gets dropped off regularly.”
That may have been the case Sunday, but most weeks it is simply a matter of too much stuff for too little space.
Home prices for Sacramento, Placerville and El Dorado counties were listed on Sunday, and Yolo was not. “Plenty of people in Yolo County buy The Bee and probably want to track their neighbors’ prices as much as the folks in Sacramento and Placerville… News is news, regardless of where in the alphabet it is,” Finch said.
In the past, readers from other areas have had the same complaint. Arden Park, the highest-numbered ZIP code in Sacramento, seemed to be missing a lot a few months ago.
Business Editor Stuart Drown confirmed there is always a battle for more space for this sort of data, and the plan is to run as many areas as possible every week. If something has to be trimmed, the communities will be rotated to reduce impact on readers in any single area.
Don’t forget Nevada County
The folks in Grass Valley and surroundings sometimes feel left out too, as Patricia Maule pointed out this past week. A July 4 story on the aging population in the region used her county as an example of the trend, and quoted a former Nevada County official on the impact of aging, but then left out four of the five statistics which were provided for all other counties in the region.
And a large graphic on “Rotating outage blocks” published July 5 left Nevada County blank, “a non-existent place,” she said.
Smudged, wrinkled and torn
A number of readers are convinced something is going on at The Bee which results in poor quality in the paper delivered to their door.
Jeanne Kammerrer asked, only slightly tongue in cheek, “does someone have it in for me?” Her July 17 newspaper arrived badly wrinkled and smudged. She mailed it to me and I can confirm it looked as if it had been run over by a truck.
Then on Wednesday an irritated reader from Sacramento phoned to point out that his Taste Section was folded, not neatly, but with a set of wrinkles right down the middle of every page. I checked my office copy and it had the identical symptoms, an obvious problem with the folder which was missed before the paper went out the door.
The readers’ perceptions are that these problems have become worse in the past month or two.
While the press and production crews work on improving the quality, readers can help by sending in tearsheets of problems they see. Mail them to me and I will get them to the right people.
Meanwhile, if your paper is below standard, call customer service (321-1111 for most readers) and ask for a replacement copy.
Thanks for moving XXX
Several readers who have children who read sports pages noticed that The Bee finally moved the advertisements for XXX-rated shows and videos out of the sports section. Parents had been complaining regularly for years that sports — which attracts the young — was an inappropriate place to advertise sexual entertainment.
Jason Green’s note was typical: “I want to thank whoever it was that decided to drop the adult ads from the For The Record page.” The decision was ultimately made by the publisher, in direct response to reader feedback.
John Paul, of Carmichael, thought the advertising department explanation should have been more direct, instead of suggesting it was for readers’ convenience.
Personally, I don’t care why they moved. I’m just glad it was finally done, as it was an obvious irritant to a lot of Bee readers.
That accomplished, The Bee now has time for new complaints.
