mea culpa by newspaper on flyer missing text - JUST IN

By: relawson
Published On: 6/12/2006 6:53:50 PM

FYI, I just got an email explaining the reasons that the text was missing:

Your email complaining about the Web treatment of the Jim Webb flier was forwarded to me.

I realize it looks like we deliberately removed the text of the piece. But we did not. What the online producer did was to pick up the image as prepared by the newsroom, which was Photoshopped to capture just the image layer, not the text layer, and cropped to just the image. The online producer picked up the prepared image but did not duplicate the crop. We should have cropped the image as the newsroom did, to avoid any appearance that the flier had been purposefully edited to remove the text.

I consider this a +óGé¼+ôteachable moment+óGé¼-¥ in journalism best practice and ethics, and I will speak to the online producer who handled this image, and indeed to the entire online staff, about the misperceptions that readers may have when we do not take extreme care in the handling of content we post to the Web site.
Please let me know if you have other questions or concerns about TimesDispatch.com.

Mary Ellin
_______________________

Mary Ellin Arch
Regional Content Manager
Virginia Group
Media General Interactive Media Division

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Whitley, Tyler R.
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 2:05 PM
To: Arch, Mary Ellin
Subject: FW: Jim Webb flyer's text is missing

-----Original Message-----
From: Roy Lawson [mailto:roy@freedomcast.com]
Sent: 6/10/2006 6:35 PM
To: Hardin, Peter L.
Cc: Whitley, Tyler R.
Subject: Jim Webb flyer's text is missing

Regarding the Webb campaign flyer:

Why was the text removed from the reprint of the flyer?  If you are to report the facts, why would you exclude a critical part of the story?The complete and UNDOCTORED flyer looks like this: http://notlarrysabato.typepad.com/doh/files/miller_flyer_color.pdf

Your edited version removes citations and make it appear that Webb's staff invented claims.  Do you have a legitimate reason for this?  If not, I am going to call this poor journalism.

It was some of our own IT activists who were in fact coining Miller the "anti-Christ to IT workers" and it had absolutely nothing to do with his race or religion.  In fact, even after years of opposing Harris Miller I was not aware that he was Jewish.  That name comes from the fact that he has worked hard to harm our profession.  Please correct the image and report the facts.

Best Regards,

Roy Lawson
Director
Programmers Guild

Comments



A "Teachable Moment?" (JennyE - 6/12/2006 7:33:44 PM)
Well Ms. Arch, your "teachable moment" deserves a statement of correction with regards to your poor oversight.

Write to them and let them put in a statement about this preferably in tomorrow's paper.



Thats good but will they print the mea culpa? (Loudoun County Dem - 6/12/2006 7:55:58 PM)
...or is this only for those of us who noticed?


Let's put it this way (relawson - 6/12/2006 8:20:19 PM)
They should.  Did this go to print - it appears this is just online so a correction should be quick and easy.


The flyer was on the frontpage of this past weekends RTD (JennyE - 6/12/2006 8:30:39 PM)
in the print edition. A correction both in the online edition and in the print edition is in order.


Agree 100% that they should (Eric - 6/12/2006 8:40:44 PM)
own up to their "mistake" in print.  But I'd be careful about asking - they may just use it as an opportunity to reprint and renew the anti-semitism charges.