By Gina Lubrano
July 22, 2002
‘My wife is freaked out,” the caller said. He was referring to the slaying of Samantha Runnion, the 5-year-old who was taken kicking and screaming from outside her Orange County home by a man police say may be a serial rapist and killer. They said he would strike again.
But after reading Thursday’s front-page story in The San Diego Union-Tribune, the reader was annoyed with the newspaper. In the third paragraph, the article said the Orange County Sheriff’s Department released a sketch and description of the kidnapper. Although the description was on the front page and in another story inside the paper, the sketch was nowhere to be seen.
“You get people’s attention, but you don’t provide the public anything in order to avoid anything further,” said the caller, a father who did not want his name used. “Yes, this happened in Orange County, but I note from the map it happened awful close to San Diego County, and who the heck knows where it’s going to happen next.
“I’m not panic-stricken; I’m not paranoid, but if the sketch is available, it should be part of the story.”
Peggy Hunt, who works at Miramar College, said in an e-mail she would give the newspaper a failing grade for not including the sketch.
Both readers are correct. The newspaper failed its readers by not giving them the information that was available. The sketch had appeared in the Union-Tribune the day before and also appeared Friday, but that did not help readers who saw Thursday’s story only. An arrest in the case was announced Friday.
It also concerns me that the Union-Tribune used, not once or twice, but three times, the full name of the child who was with Samantha when she was abducted. With the killer at large, the Union-Tribune and others in the media who used it, unwittingly gave him the name of a witness who could identify him.
It doesn’t matter that all three stories that used the name were written by news service reporters. It was up to editors at the Union-Tribune to exercise caution and not use the child’s full name.
That care showed in the story that appeared Thursday adjacent to the article about Samantha. It told of an attempted abduction Tuesday of a San Diego child while she was waiting at a bus stop with her sister near Bay View Heights Place.
The child, who managed to break free from a man who grasped her arm and tried to drag her into his vehicle, was simply described as an 8-year-old girl. Although the reporter had her name and the names of witnesses, they were not used. Karen Clark, the assistant metro editor who worked on the story, said the decision was instinctive. She and the reporter did not discuss it, although Clark recalls that when she edited the story, she checked to make sure the name was not used. Their instincts were on target.
The story compared the description of the local would-be kidnapper with that of the man who abducted Samantha. It also noted that on the day the attempt was made in San Diego, authorities here were looking for the Orange County kidnapper, “thinking he might drive through San Diego on the way to Mexico.”
Whether Samantha’s kidnapper ever reads the Union-Tribune or has access to it is immaterial. Out of an abundance of caution, the newspaper should have protected the Orange County witness just as it did the local children by not using her name.
If you work The New York Times Crossword Puzzle that appears in the Union-Tribune on a regular basis, you know sometimes the game includes a trick. That’s what happened July 11. As could be predicted, not everyone caught on. It wasn’t easy.
When she saw the answers the next day, a reader complained that the puzzle was unfair. One look at the solution and I could see why she was unhappy. Unlike traditional crossword puzzles, some boxes were filled with two letters instead of one. If I had inspected the solution more closely, I would have seen there were 17 boxes that had double letters, and in each case the letters were “NC.”
It took a phone call to Will Shortz, the editor of the puzzle, for an explanation. He pointed me to a clue that said: “Like the film ‘Henry & June’ (and this puzzle).” The answer took eight boxes. Astute crossword connoisseurs who filled in the boxes with “rated NC 17″ then could go back and solve the puzzle. NC-17 indicates children 17 and under will not be admitted.
Shortz said The New York Times, where the puzzle initially appeared on May 30, got rave reviews. “Those who got it loved it,” Shortz said.
Shortz said once puzzle fans realize that double letters can be one of the tricks of the game, they’re ready for it. It’s not done too frequently, however. The idea is to keep puzzle fans guessing.
Gina Lubrano’s column commenting on the media appears Mondays. It is the policy of The San Diego Union-Tribune to correct all errors. To discuss accuracy or fairness in the news, please write to Gina Lubrano, readers representative, Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191, or telephone (619) 293-1525. Send e-mail to:
readers.rep@uniontrib.com.
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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