Polls, margins and majorities

Some readers were confused or accused The Times of bias after reading the May 23 poll story presenting results of Californians' opinions about same-sex marriage.

Jim Nores of Santa Clarita referred to the headline, "Californians Barely Reject Gay Marriage," when he wrote, "It is not until you add the numbers yourself do you find that numbers are actually 52% to 41% with 7% don't know! That is a spread of 11 points! Please tell me how the word 'barely' can be used to describe those numbers. The headlines and first paragraph are clearly intended to mislead the reader into thinking that the numbers were a lot closer than they really were." (In some editions, the headline read, "Californians Slimly Reject Gay Marriage," and online the word was "narrowly.")

Nores was talking about results for the question, “Do you approve or disapprove of the California Supreme Court’s decision last week to allow same-sex marriage in California?” The results among voters and nonvoters combined:

Strongly approve: 29%
Somewhat approve: 12%
Somewhat disapprove: 10%
Strongly disapprove: 42%
Don’t know: 7%

In a follow-up note, Nores added, "I am sure if [Barack] Obama beats Hillary [Clinton] by the same margin, the descriptor would be 'landslide,' not 'barely.'"

Of another poll findings, several readers thought -- as one put it -- that it was an "obvious example of bias" to cite as a "bare majority" what they saw as a 19-point lead among those who want to outlaw gay marriage.

Those readers were asking about a different question, asked of registered voters: “A proposed amendment to the state's Constitution that may  appear on the November ballot would reverse the court's decision and state that marriage is only between a man and a woman. If the election were held today, would you vote for or against the amendment?”

The results: 54% for; 35% against.

Other readers, too, were stumped at why the 54% to 35% was "barely."

As editors and the reporter emphasized afterward, the word "barely" did not refer to the margin, it referred to the majority -- "a different statistical measurement," as state politics editor Cathleen Decker, who wrote the story, put it. And, editors point out, in a poll in which the margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points, 54% is a bare majority.

But as evidenced by some of the notes that came in, when it comes to polls, people usually consider the margin between the two figures to be key.

Awards to Food section and writer Russ Parsons

The memo to staff from Associate Editor Leo Wolinsky:

Good news from the world of food. Our Food section has won an Association of Food Journalists prize for Best Newspaper Food Section (Circulation 300,001 and over). Russ Parsons won for Best Newspaper Food Feature (Circulation 323,001 and over). His winning entry was his terrific story about the squid fishery, “Lights, Nets, Action.” 

The prizes, whether first, second or third place, will be awarded in Houston in November.

For a look at the cover of the section on the day Parsons' story was published, see below:

Sallie Hofmeister named Business editor

Editor Russ Stanton's memo to staff:

Sallie Hofmeister, deputy Business editor since 2006, is being promoted to Business editor.

For the last 18 months, Sallie supervised our coverage of entertainment and technology, two of the region's most important industries, and was responsible for some of the paper's signature work in 2007: the Hollywood writers’ strike that crippled the TV industry. Sallie and her team found innovative ways to tell the story in print and online. She constantly pushed her reporters to break news on the Web, and to step back and look at the broader picture for print. That body of work is now a finalist in the breaking-news category of the Gerald Loeb Awards.

"Whatever Happened to Iraq?"

"The decline in coverage of Iraq has been staggering," reports AJR in a preview of its June/July issue, now online. Times Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller is among editors interviewed. She names three factors contributing to the declining reporting from Iraq: The great interest in the economic downturn and the contentious presidential primaries; "war fatigue" over reports of violence that seem sadly similar week after week; and the high cost of keeping correspondents in Baghdad.

(Also a part of the AJR story is a column on the same subject that was linked earlier on this journal: the Sacramento Bee public editor's March 30 column bemoaning the waning interest in the war on the part of both the public and the media. Armando Acuna updated that column with one two weeks later that noted that in the wake of breaking news there, Iraq was once again -- temporarily -- in the news.)

Updated: In a follow-up e-mail to the readers' rep office, Foreign Editor Miller noted that The Times continues to maintain a strong bureau in Iraq. Times staffers there include two to three reporters on the ground at a given time, plus a large Iraqi staff of reporters and translators. Coverage of the ongoing war is routinely placed on the front page or on the World page inside on Page A3; staffers also blog from Iraq daily on Babylon & Beyond. Now more than ever, as correspondent Alexandra Zavis said in a e-mail that was part of the AJR story, it "is the responsibility of journalists to put a name and a face on the mind-numbing statistics, to take readers into the lives of ordinary Iraqis, and to find ways to convey what this unimaginable bloodshed means to the people who live it."

Sunday tributes to war dead

Nearly 500 Californians have been among those American servicemen and women killed in the line of duty during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and since late 2001, The Times has paid tribute to more than 400 of them with a staff-written obituary.

Some readers say it's the first thing they read on Sunday, when the military obituaries are published. And now, as an article on Sunday explained, readers have more ways to grasp the lives and deaths of the Californians killed with a database that will allow searches by age, by region, by high school; by how many soldiers were single, married or had children, and more.

Readers already are using the database as a way to pay their respects. Morning assignment editor Megan Garvey has in the past several days posted many of the reader comments and is surprised and moved by how personal most of the observations are -- including from those who didn't know a soldier directly.  (Garvey wrote the obituary for Army Staff Sgt. Darrell R. Griffin Jr. in April 2007.)

The first notice of a Californian's death was published in December 2001: Brian Cody Prosser, of Frazier Park, was one of three U.S. Special Forces soldiers killed Dec. 5, 2001, in Afghanistan by a bomb that missed its Taliban target.

The portraits published since then include passages from soldiers' e-mails, their favorite movies, their hobbies; they recall memories told by high-school friends, vignettes of childhood pets, nicknames and the reasons behind them.

Ombudsmen columns

Below are links to some of the past week's columns by ombudsmen, readers' representatives and editors around the nation. More columns and information about ombudsmen in the U.S. and around the world can be found at the Organization of News Ombudsmen website (which has a permanent link on the right side of this page).

Graffiti a blight in photos too

The story was about drivers, red lights and tickets, but the thing that irked some readers was the photo. From Walter Renzi of Los Angeles: "Attached to the story on right turns generating revenues there is a photograph that shows the back of a traffic sign with multiple graffiti inscriptions. I would like to know if in the future The Times would consider omitting any graffiti that shows up in photographs. I don’t think that it needs to be reproduced."

The story reported how cameras intended to catch drivers barreling straight through red lights instead often catch drivers turning right on red without stopping. The photo was taken where Garfield Avenue meets Via Campo in Montebello, whose cameras have resulted in the city's earning some $90,000 per month. The photo in the paper showed a car turning right as the traffic light glowed somewhere between yellow and red. The graffiti on the back of the traffic sign were ugly but not a prominent part of the photo, said Robert St. John, the senior photo editor who helps oversee photos for California stories. "Whenever we photograph graffiti we edit it carefully to avoid offensive words." Such editing, he emphasized, does not include changing what’s in the photograph. As The Times' ethics guidelines put it, “Photographs and graphics must inform, not mislead. …We do not add color, create photomontages, remove objects or flop images. We do not digitally alter images beyond making minor adjustments for color correction, exposure correction and removal of dust spots or scratches required to ensure faithful reproduction of the original image.”

Carol J. Williams going from Foreign to California Desk

A memo from David Lauter, the Times' California editor, announcing a new assignment for reporter Carol J. Williams:

The perils of "Indiana Jones" on the front page

Indiana Jones landed on the front page on Monday in the form of a review written from Cannes, and a dozen readers took the time to take note. Bruce Hartzell said in an e-mail that he was "shocked and disappointed to see the L.A. Times run a review of the new Indiana Jones movie on the front page. What's next, a recap of 'American Idol'? The front page and front section of the paper should be focused on real news. The Calendar section is the appropriate section of the paper for film reviews."

"Whether there were more newsworthy subjects or not," wrote Will Campbell of Silver Lake, "I cringed at seeing Turan's glowing review of the latest Steven Spielberg film -- or mainly of Spielberg -- on the front page of today's L.A. Times.  I know it's below the fold, but it comes off as a big blatant sloppy wet one that has no business being anywhere on or near A1."

Slow news day or not, the idea of putting the review for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on Page A1 had been discussed for a few days among a number of editors.

Ombudsmen columns

Below are links to some of the past week's columns by ombudsmen, readers' representatives and editors around the nation. More columns and information about ombudsmen in the U.S. and around the world can be found at the Organization of News Ombudsmen website (which has a permanent link on the right side of this page).

Q&A with Robyn Dixon, RFK Journalism Award winner

Robyn Dixon is one of the recipients of the 40th Annual Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, which recognize "outstanding reporting of the lives and strife of disadvantaged people throughout the world." Dixon, The Times' bureau chief in Johannesburg, South Africa, won in the International Print category for her coverage of Zimbabwe in 2007, articles that "judges agreed showed truly extraordinary courage in reporting and [painted] a deeply moving and comprehensive portrait of a country descending into a catastrophic nightmare."

"The roads of Zimbabwe sing their own haunting lament for a people and their suffering," wrote Dixon in her piece of Dec. 22, 2007, in one of 10 articles for which she was recognized. Another, from Sept. 3, begins, "Kuda Shumba goes at one speed: fast. He prides himself on being able to get hold of almost anything, and he's open for business day or night. That's what it takes to be one of Zimbabwe's black-market cowboys."

(Links to the articles on which the judges based their decisions are below.)

Wrote her editors in their letter of nomination, "She unveiled the tragedy of Zimbabwe through tales of ordinary people trapped in an Orwellian nightmare.” As Dixon herself wrote in her Dec. 22 article, "Reporting is difficult here. Because the government rarely issues journalist visas to foreigners, most of us work undercover, risking jail."

Dixon responded to questions from the readers' representative office earlier this year. Surprisingly, the reporter listed being on a plane among her fears. Not surprisingly, she doesn't like to be caught in angry mobs.

China's "opportunity": Objections and responses

Wednesday's story about the tragedy that is unfolding in China reported not only that more than 12,000 had been killed but also how it "has given China an opportunity for a dramatic image makeover. After months of relentless coverage of Tibetan clashes and human rights abuses, the earthquake shows a new China, one that is both compassionate and competent."

A few readers thought the headline, "Amid the tragedy lies opportunity," and the article were insensitive.

One reader said he was appalled, in light of the enormity of the tragedy and the lives lost, that the story was on the front page; he thought that the article's thesis signified as he put it, that "we in Los Angeles are thinking image."

Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller and reporter Barbara Demick respond.

2007 Editorial Awards: about the winners

This updates the earlier posting that gave names of the Editorial Award winners with some information about each.

Visual Journalism department combines print and web operations

Here is Editor Russ Stanton's memo about the creation of a new department, Visual Journalism:

Of marches and walkathons

Sandy Banks' Tuesday column was about an event that drew thousands on Sunday -- and that wasn't covered otherwise in the L.A. Times.

"I was astonished to find no article in The Times regarding the EIF Run/Walk for Women held at the Coliseum," wrote Gerry Suzuki of Torrance on Sunday. "Did I somehow overlook it?  When 50,000 or more people  show up to support such a worthwhile fundraiser, it deserves attention. Most of the participants wore signs on their backs honoring several friends or relatives. You found space to report a rally of 400 parents supporting students of Crenshaw High and to report a march of about 400 in Hollywood supporting China's Olympics. Also an article about Ojai's Pastie Lady.  Are those items so important that there was no space left for an event involving more than 50,000? What kind of newspaper can ignore a topic  affecting so many local people?" Donna Trimingham of Redondo Beach wrote too: "How about next year you come walk with me and the 60,000 others or at least give us a paragraph or two in your paper."

It's not uncommon to get such complaints every month or two, given the fact that a region this size gives rise regularly to well-attended events, be they protest marches or fundraising rallies for a good cause.

2007 Los Angeles Times Editorial Awards

Below is a partial list of the winners of the 2007 Los Angeles Times Editorial Awards; names of the recipients of the Editor's Prize* and a Special Citation* (see updates) will be announced at a staff gathering tonight.

"Left-leaning" or "nonpartisan"?

Why would a Times article call the American Enterprise Institute "conservative-leaning," but not refer in the same article to the politics of the Mike Mansfield Foundation? Why do stories refer to the Brookings Institution variously as "centrist," "conservative" and "nonpartisan"?

Some readers have an answer to the inconsistent application of labels: They think it shows bias, saying it suggests that the reporter believes that one is mainstream and thus needs no label, while the other needs to be identified as somewhere relative to that norm.

The question was most recently raised on the April 23 article about a CIA report to Congress alleging ties between North Korea and Syria. Reader Norman Nathan of Los Angeles noted, "The article identifies the AEI as 'right-leaning' but it does not identify the Mike Mansfield Foundation as a 'left-leaning organization.' And the story gives no context as to the reasoning." In a follow-up phone call Nathan said he thought it showed liberal bias, and that furthermore, "I would have thought there would be a policy, a standard, consistent way of identifying foundations."

The April 23 article on North Korea-Syria ties reported that "disclosure of the relationship to the committees is likely to bring criticism from conservative lawmakers" who already believe that the U.S. has been too gentle with the government in Pyongyang. The story went on: "Danielle Pletka, a vice president of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute think tank, said the congressional briefings were simply a step the administration needed to take to move forward." Here's the reference to the foundation: "'You'll have some outcry, but I doubt there are enough people on Capitol Hill even paying attention to oppose it,' said Gordon Flake, who follows the issue as executive director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and is a critic of such a pact."

This particular story was by Paul Richter, who says he agrees with the readers.

Ombudsmen columns

Here are links to some of the past week's columns by ombudsmen, readers' representatives and editors around the nation. More columns and information about ombudsmen in the U.S. and around the world can be found at the Organization of News Ombudsmen website (which has a permanent link on the right side of this page).

The Salt Lake Tribune, "Spanish-language ads remain hot topic"

The Washington Post, "A shaky performance on corrections"

Chicago Tribune, "Horse analogy impolitic, unsettling"

The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), "How letters botched the facts in sensitive Palestinian issue"

The New York Times, "Information that doesn't come freely"

Sacramento Bee - public editor, "Bee's coverage of a weak economy is mostly strong"; editor, "When I-5 traffic gets bad, you've got a friend"

The San Diego Union-Tribune, "When our readers become editors"

Hartford Courant, "Readers grapple with TV Week move"

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), "Joanna Connors' story of rape drew overwhelmingly positive response"

The News&Observer (Raleigh, NC), "Grading online election coverage"

San Antonio Express-News, "Reporters intended no malice with choice of words"

PBS, "Carried Away?"

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Social Butterfly a showcase for area's charities"

"American Idol" updates

"The surprising and unlikely 'American Idol' journey of Jason Castro ended Wednesday night in a week that saw nearly 51 million votes cast on television's most popular show," was the opening line to the story that appeared in Thursday's Times.

Several readers wanted to know more about the popular show than merely who won or lost, though: They wanted to know why the story appeared in the California section, not in Calendar, where stories about TV shows typically appear. As Scott Landsbaum of Beverly Hills put it, "Surely there must have been something more important or uplifting that you could have featured."

Calendar's early deadline is the reason feature stories sometimes appear in unexpected places, or at unexpected times; Calendar is printed by 3 p.m. As the "American Idol" competition comes to a finale, editors see it as breaking news. That means that coverage of Wednesday night's show had to be printed in another section.

Promotion for Senior Copy Chief Mark McGonigle

Here's a memo from Meredith Artley, Executive Editor, Interactive, and Melissa McCoy, Deputy Managing Editor, announcing an expansion in duties for Senior Copy Chief Mark McGonigle.

The online conversation

Reporter Stuart Pfeifer forwarded an inquiry from reader William Franckē of the Fairfax District, who'd been moved enough by an April 8 story that he wanted to post a comment. But there was no place to do so. His note to Pfeifer:

"Stuart, just read your very disheartening story about the O.C. Sheriff's Department and the death of inmate John Derek Chamberlain. I cannot understand why these people (sheriffs!!!) are not being charged. Who at The Times decides whether or not to allow readers to 'discuss' stories?  It seems pretty hit and miss as to which story we will be allowed to respond to and I'm sure a lot of people have something to say about this story."

Reader S.J. Sand in West Hills sent a similar sentiment: "Please put a 'comment' box under ALL articles, as most newspapers, i.e. the Washington Post, are doing.  Don't make us go searching. If you value readers' comments, then you should make it easy for us to comment."

Scoring high school sports

The Times has found something of an answer to a struggle it has had for years: Getting reports from as many fields, courts, tracks and pools as possible from nearly 700 high schools in The Times' five-county region, and then giving readers more of what they want when they ask for local coverage.

Nowadays the Sports desk puts more reports on games than ever online, at Varsity Times Insider; and as ever, editors count on coaches and schools to send in the scores and stats on games and matches.

Denny Lennon is both reader and coach, an overlap not uncommon in those wanting more from The Times. He wrote in response to a column by Eric Sondheimer on April 9 about the Corona del Mar volleyball team, "Given my position as director of beach volleyball for USA Volleyball, I was pleased to see coverage of boys in the Sports section today. However, as a reader of the L.A. Times for over 40 years, I  prefer to read about teams that are at least in L.A. County. Let web-based or Orange County newspapers cover their activities, we have boys powers like Loyola or Mira Costa that deserve time in the Los Angeles Times."

In other words, every reader thinks of "local" as his or her area, which might mean anywhere in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside or San Bernardino counties. That's what makes Varsity Times key to coverage. Off the main page, readers will find regional coverage, where Times reporters blog about high school sports around the Southland. There are six blogs: the City Section (schools in the L.A. Unified School District) and the Southern Section, which includes schools in the San Fernando Valley/North, the Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, Orange County and L.A. County (those not in the City Section). There's even a blog called Recruiting Buzz, conversations about where local athletes are going to college.

Ombudsmen columns

Here are links to some of the past week's columns by ombudsmen, readers' representatives and editors around the nation. More columns and information about ombudsmen in the U.S. and around the world can be found at the Organization of News Ombudsmen website (which has a permanent link on the right side of this page).

Chicago Tribune, "R. Kelly secrecy weakens system"

The Salt Lake Tribune, "Spanish ads appeal to growing niche"

The New York Times, "The preacher's new pulpit"

PBS, "Too much reverence for the reverend?"

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), "Why Obama story didn't run on Page One"

The New&Observer (Raleigh, NC), "Political potpourri: polls, endorsements"

The Washington Post, "A lesson about copycats"

The San Diego Union-Tribune, "New models for disseminating news"

Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), "Juveniles should be identified when gun crimes are involved"

San Antonio Express-News, "Tipster made story about Spurs' plane possible"

The Virginian-Pilot, "Pentagon deception, media complicity"

Kansas City Star, "'Embarrassment' is only in the eye of the beholder"

Sacramento Bee - editor, "Johnson story calls for reporting in depth"

Anniston Star (Alabama), "Star project needed more explanation"

Arizona Daily Star, "A look back at land-deal coverage"

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "AJC will keep digging into Clayton schools story"

The Courier-Journal (Lexington, KY), "Celebrating a freer world press"

Phil Willon to the City Hall team

Here's a memo to the staff from California Editor David Lauter announcing reporter Phil Willon's assignment to the City Hall beat.