Some readers were annoyed when the Union-Tribune used a partial quotation from President Bush in a Jan. 6 front-page story and headline. One of those who objected noted that the full quotation was used later but was “hidden on a back page where it wouldn’t be noticed.”
He was among a handful of readers who accused the Union-Tribune of being deliberately inaccurate. The statement in question was delivered by the president on Jan. 5 at a town hall meeting in Southern California.
Although some readers suggested conservative politics were at play here, the story was written the way it was for the sake of clarity. The president was quoted, but his full statement did not appear until later in the same story. Had there been any attempt to hide anything, why bother including it?
The front-page headline said: ” ‘Over my dead body,’ Bush says of tax hike.” The story, datelined Ontario, began: “A combative President Bush yesterday accused Democratic critics of his economic program of seeking to raise taxes and vowed they would get away with it ‘over my dead body.’ ”
While the quotation was accurate, it was incomplete. There’s nothing wrong with that. Headline writers occasionally take a partial quotation from a story; reporters often put parts of a sentence in quotations. It is appropriate as long as the words quoted are accurate and the meaning is clear.
That’s what the headline and the story did: They made the president’s message clear. No tax increases. The full quotation, “Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes,” was used later. It appeared on Page A-16 because that’s where the story was continued. In fact, only three paragraphs of the story appeared on the front page.
“To reporters and other people attending the event there was some question as to what Bush had actually said because of the awkward phraseology,” said veteran political reporter John Marelius. “There was absolutely no question as to what he meant because he said it in several different ways during the speech and, for that matter, has been saying it since he became a candidate for president in 1999.”
Once readers complained, I looked at the way the quotation was handled by other newspapers. Wrote The New York Times: “President Bush used his first major appearance of the new year today to declare to an audience in central California that Democrats would reverse the tax cuts of last year ‘over my dead body.’ ” Later in the story, the full quotation was used. That was the case with Newsday, the San Jose Mercury News and The Washington Post. The Los Angeles Times used only the partial quotation. The San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Daily News included the “not” throughout their articles.
To me, Marelius served the readers in leaving no question about what the president meant.
Jane Halsema was upset when, on Nov. 13, a story said that five of the seven people who died on the ground in the PSA crash on Sept. 25, 1978, perished on the North Park property where she lives.
Not true, said Halsema who didn’t live there at the time of the crash. Halsema now lives at the northeast corner of Dwight and Nile streets. Although the house to the north of hers was hit, her home was spared. Had she been there, Halsema would have had a view of the death and destruction when the aircraft plowed into Dwight Street.
The Nov. 13 story was written in connection with the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 that, like the PSA flight more than two decades ago, crashed into a neighborhood. The information that led to the error about Halsema’s home also was in a story on Sept. 21. 1998. The story also put some of the fatalities at the northeast corner of Dwight and Nile. It should have been the northwest corner.
A front-page story Wednesday about a lawsuit the Padres have filed against attorney Bruce Henderson was seen by some readers as editorializing, specifically in the first paragraph. After saying Henderson’s lawsuits have created “innumerable headaches for the Padres,” the reporter wrote: “Yesterday the Padres responded in a manner that somehow seems fitting. They sued him.”
Although there is disagreement among some editors, I understand readers’ concerns. No matter how you feel about the ballpark, Henderson and the Padres, neutral language was in order here as it is in any story involving a lawsuit. I fear “somehow seems fitting” can be interpreted as the Union-Tribune giving tacit approval to the the Padres’ suit. That’s not what the reporter intended to say.
There’s more than one way to write it, of course, but in keeping with the writer’s style, it would have been more neutral to say: “Yesterday, the Padres responded in kind. They sued him.”
