I’m proud to report back to you that during the past two weeks a fair number of readers have experienced — for the first time — the accessibility of the Star-Telegram and the plunge into correcting us.
Surely others toyed with that notion two Sundays ago but decided to spend their time doing something else, like practicing their faith or taking a nap.
I’m referring to response to this column’s June 1 musing about readers who see errors in print but don’t tell us.
The issue arose after marveling at how some people knew they were reading faked work by former New York Times writer Jayson Blair but never bothered to tell the paper.
Why, we wondered, do readers suffer inaccuracies?
The question evidently resonated in readerland as a call to action. Empowerment bloomed out there. A proactive day had dawned.
The first reply from a reader came at 8:15 a.m. that Sunday. “Your column has a grammatical error in it,” she said in her voice mail, not leaving her name.
Calls and e-mails that followed focused on factual errors.
At 10:57 a.m. that Sunday, “Jack” called. “I’m taking you up on your offer,” he said, noting that an Oklahoma State University baseball coach had been incorrectly identified in the “Transactions” section of sports agate as the basketball coach.
On it went until this past Tuesday, when a Family Day item identified a sea turtle as an amphibian, unleashing a flurry of response. “Page 3E says sea turtles are amphibians,” one reader said. “They’re reptiles. Some kids could go through life thinking a turtle’s an amphibian.”
Another reader questioned whether the Legislature had passed a law, as we reported, honoring national spelling bee champ Sai Gunturi of Dallas. “I think you mean the Legislature passed a resolution,” he said. We checked and agreed.
Then the readers kicked things up a notch.
They questioned the accuracy of our news judgment.
Tuesday’s Page One carried a story across the top (the “strip story,” it’s called) about Star-Telegram sports columnist Randy Galloway moving his “vindictive, self-serving, often vicious” sports talk show from WBAP-AM to ESPN Radio after an 18-year run — the longest of any such show in Texas.
Shameless self-promotion, not Page One news, readers declared, discounting the marketwide local interest in a celebrity shuffle that will affect a near-legendary talk show and at least 100,000 Galloway listeners.
We got more red marks from a few readers the next day when we stripped a story on Page One about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s pending book release.
Protesting readers argued that the story was promotional fluff. One suspected our motives. “Do y’all get kickbacks for this?” she asked.
Actually, we were angling for readership, given that stories about women overcoming travails are classic topics and Clinton’s publisher saw enough public interest to ink an $8 million book deal with her. Kinda sorta figured readers would be interested in the story.
On another day, another reader couldn’t resist calling to tell us that our brief on a West Texas election didn’t identify either of the candidates according to their party affiliation.
For the record, Republican Randy Neugebauer defeated Republican Mike Conaway to succeed Republican Larry Combest as District 19′s representative in Congress.
So it went. Corrections and clarifications resulted. There were many opportunities to exchange thoughts with readers who for various reasons had never contacted us.
Now that they have, I hope they know that the Star-Telegram cares about what they think and the accuracy of what we print for them.
And I hope they know that when they find questionable content, we want them to do at least one thing: Tell us. Our credibility’s at stake.
