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).