Sometimes, we screw up.
Sure, everybody does, but not as obviously
as a newspaper.
What makes me proud, despite our
indisputable imperfection, is that I don’t
know any other industry that so publicly acknowledges
its foibles and tries to correct
its mistakes.
The press is the only profession expressly
protected in the Constitution. But with
that comes a tremendous responsibility.
It has become my custom to devote one
of my first columns each year to acknowledging
the miscues of the previous 12
months.
And a fine custom it
is, too.
In 2008, The Daily Star
ran 174 corrections, an
eerily similar number
to the 176 we published
in 2007. To give a bit of
perspective, we ran 202 in
2006, and 155 the previous
year.
Most by far have been
our fault, with the rest
caused by inaccurate
information in interviews
or media releases.
And, as I acknowledge
each year, these are only
the mistakes we know
about. There is no question
that we made many more that weren’t
brought to our attention.
In comparison with some past years in
which some of our errors were painfully
embarrassing, humorous or almost inexplicable,
2008’s corrections were fairly
mundane.
Primarily, we misspelled some names,
got some dates for events wrong, left out
some relevant information and did some
faulty math when dealing with statistics.
While these are all things that can
drive editors to drink, they were all honest
mistakes and not the result of any preconceived
prejudice or animus.
I know there are folks who will never
believe that, and they are privileged to
believe what they want.
But here’s the most compelling argument
I can employ to make my point.
There’s a plethora of 24-hour cable
networks offering news, sports, weather,
business and all sorts of other things previous
generations received from newspapers
and in half-hour telecasts from CBS, NBC
and ABC.
The Internet offers virtually unlimited
information about everything, including
what’s in every major newspaper in the
country.
What’s left for newspapers?
Well, actually lots of things, not the least
of which is the material to wrap fish and
train puppies. But our most precious asset
_ along with our primacy in covering local
news _ is our credibility.
In an era in which anyone with a computer
and an opinion can be his own Internet
media outlet, newspapers are still rightfully
looked upon as having the best-trained journalists
and those most guided by ethics.
If we lose that honor, we lose everything.
We may lose almost everything, anyway.
While the big-city metros would seem to
be more vulnerable than community papers
such as the one you’re reading now, it’s no
secret that newspapers, as a whole, are in
deep trouble.
If you’re looking at this column on a
computer, you didn’t pay to read it, and
that’s part of why times are so tough.
A whole generation has grown up unwilling
to pay for news. Combine that with the
Internet’s ability to specialize and target
individual needs of consumers, and it’s
easy to see why many newspapers have lost
advertisers.
Because this is a column about errors,
it bears noting that newspapers’ biggest
mistakes are being conducted in corporate
offices all over America.
Like many other businesses taken over
by those whose vision of the future is obscured
by quarterly spreadsheets, a lot of
newspaper companies have fallen into the
trap of thinking that laying off employees
can clear the path to success.
Some of the most skilled fiction writing
I’ve ever read are recent memos and
columns by editors I respect who have had
to wince and tell their employees and readers
that staff reductions will actually allow
their newsrooms to be more efficient.
Newspaper people tend to be a bit emotional
about all this turmoil. Along with
the hand-wringing and self-flagellation so
cherished by those in my profession, is this
worry.
One day, we’re going to get this all
worked out. We’re going to find ways to take
advantage of the opportunities presented
by the Internet, including video, podcasts
and forms of communication we don’t even
know about yet, and make it all extremely
profitable.
The worry is that if the cuts keep coming,
there might not be anything worthwhile
left to salvage.
And that would be the worst newspaper
error of all time.
___
Sam Pollak is the editor of The Daily Star.
He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.
com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.
