Best to hold the 'Los' when it comes to Angelenos

The article was about a beloved place that's been on the local landscape for 75 years, so perhaps the headline was even more a stick in the eye to Peter Rutenberg of Westwood. He sent an e-mail expressing irritation for the language over a story about a local farmers market. He had no problem with the main headline -- "Still fresh, yet familiar, at 75." But he balked at this subheadline: "Los Angelenos and the Original Farmers Market have mingled cozily since 1934."

Rutenberg's letter to the editor started out, "I've been a fan of the Farmer's Market for 52 years, so I loved the story. But c'mon guys! The people of this town are 'Angelenos' not LOS Angelenos. It's one thing when out-of-towners blow it, but it's an insult when the hometown paper can't even get it right."

Reader sees partisanship in 'partisan lines in the sand' angle

"Sotomayor Vote Sets a Partisan Tone," read the headline over a news report published Tuesday detailing how the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 to send Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the full Senate.

Citing the headline and other language in the article as examples of The Times' "consistent shading of the news," reader Alan Frank of Glendale opened up an e-mail exchange with National Editor Roger Smith.

The article started with this line: "Republicans' unflinching opposition Tuesday to Judge Sonia Sotomayor drew a partisan line in the sand, signaling that any future Obama nominees to the Supreme Court are unlikely to win significant GOP support even if they have solid legal credentials and moderate records."

For many, seeing isn't believing

 

Victor Garcia of Bakersfield was among several readers asking about the July 22 photo published online only with a Business article about the booming economy in the high desert city of Ridgecrest. He wondered if the image had been altered, noting “I don't think you can see the road with all the houses at the top of  the photo. (College Heights Blvd.) from Las Flores, the light signal next to the Toyota dealership (the Toyota dealership is actually further south)  There is an Enterprise Rent-A-Car and a Speedy Lube at the corner of Las Flores and China Lake Blvd. It could just be the way the photo was taken, but it may be worth looking into.”

All such inquiries are worth looking into, and editors did so in this case. It was taken with a long lens, which, as photographer Mark Boster said in an e-mail to the reader, "compresses the view."

This inquiry is one of a growing number of questions that come in about the authenticity of published photos. Other images questioned this year include one of actress Anne Hathaway (someone thought she was too unrealistically ugly) and a picture of a member of the Taliban (readers thought he looked too nice).

One particularly adamant questioning of another photograph published earlier this year came from an online reader who said she teaches Photoshop at a continuing education department of a university in another state. Even after being assured by editors who investigated the original digital files, the reader was unconvinced that the image hadn't been manipulated.

In fact, in all such situations, editors peruse the originals and talk to the photographer to be able to assure readers the photos weren't doctored. Photographer Boster sent editors his original files, notes on where he took the shots -- and even an offer to go back to Ridgecrest to review the area. But this inquiry was a fairly open-and-shut case, says Deputy Director of Photography Calvin Hom, who added: "We seem to get queries whenever our photogs use long lens while shooting landscape. It's a technique that time and again seems to jolt the readers into thinking there's something wrong with the photos."

D-day coverage criticized

On Saturday, June 6, about two dozen readers took the time to send e-mails or call The Times to complain about what wasn't there: "Why no D-day coverage in the first news section of The Times on June 6?" wrote Ray DiPietro of Rancho Palos Verdes. "I have no doubt that extensive front page coverage will be provided to President Obama's speech at Normandy in the Sunday, June 7 issue. But it is a mystery to me why the Times would not print today .... the story of the 65th Anniversary of the D-day invasion and the story of the incredibly brave men who made it happen."

The lack of coverage "is a stinging insult to all the veterans who gave their lives and those who survived the horrors of that day," Lauren Flahive of West Covina wrote on June 6.

DePietro was right about the next-day coverage: On June 7, The Times published an article about the president's speech at Normandy, France, noting the 65th anniversary of the D-day invasion. Why didn't editors make note of the history behind June 6 on Saturday?

It isn't a new question, and it isn't one asked only about D-day.

Clinton photo: 'Disrespectful' or 'a telling gesture'?

Reader J.C. Devin of Malibu sent a note of complaint regarding the image that accompanied a June 6 story about a couple who, federal authorities say, conspired for decades to provide classified information to the Cuban government.

The photo of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ran four columns over the 23-inch story and was at the very least, said Devin, "disrespectful."

Wrote Devin: "All those hours of research, fact checking and efforts at journalistic balance were lost when the individual who chose the uncomplimentary [Associated Press] photo of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to accompany your words blew it. The photo, capturing Secretary Clinton in an awkward moment at the news conference, did little to enhance your article or communicate any journalistic integrity of the L.A. Times. The Times' pride in its professionalism should ensure photo choices that support the content of an article and that don't come off as disrespectful."

The caption said, "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, shown at a news conference in Washington, has ordered an internal investigation, a 'comprehensive damage assessment' and a review of State Department security procedures."

Photo editors respond.

Sotomayor, Cardozo and the question of 'Hispanic' vs. 'Latino'

First Hispanic justice: An article in Sunday's Section A about Sonia Sotomayor and former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo incorrectly used, in the headline and the first three paragraphs, the
term Latino. The article referred to a semantic debate over whether Sotomayor was the first Hispanic to be nominated to the Supreme Court and not Cardozo. The article should have said that advocacy groups
praised Sotomayor, a New-York born Puerto Rican, as the first Hispanic, which prompted political opponents to argue that Cardozo's Portuguese heritage qualified him as the first Hispanic.

So read a Los Angeles Times For the Record that ran June 2.

When it appeared in the newspaper, some on The Times staff wondered: Why was a correction needed? One response might be: Read the May 31 story, which refers to the Pew Hispanic Report's attempt to answer the question, "Just who is a Hispanic?"

The Times picked up the May 31 story from the Chicago Tribune, one of several Tribune-owned news organizations that share news reports. The National desk editor in Los Angeles who handled the story changed the Chicago Tribune reporter’s first several uses of “Hispanic” to “Latino,” observing Times style rules: “Latino is the umbrella term for people of Latin American descent. Use Hispanic only in quotes, in proper names or reports based on census data.”

(A more comprehensive entry in The Times' stylebook under racial and ethnic identification says of “Latino”: “This is the umbrella term for Spanish-surnamed groups in the United States, including Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Central Americans and South Americans.”)

Voters the 'problem'? Cheney 'spewing'? Says who?

Readers asking last week about a Top of the Ticket blog posting that ran in print, as well as a front-page analysis, had one thing in common: They were objecting to what they called opinion, even bias, in the news pages of The Times. 

Covering taxes, covering rallies

Carl E. Ossipoff of Newport Beach wrote, "8,000 people show up to a 'Tax Revolt' rally in Fullerton and the L.A. Times fails to cover it because it's not newsworthy? Maybe if you covered the things important to the folks in the Southland, you'd sell more papers."

So said a number of others who wrote over the weekend asking why there was no story on a rally promoted by KFI-AM talk-show hosts to protest recent proposed tax increases. The rally drew (depending on who's counting) 3,000 to 15,000 people.

The Times noted the event with a short post on the L.A. Now blog on March 8. The rally was covered by the Orange County Register and San Gabriel Valley Tribune (which noted: "The radio station reported as many as 15,000 people attended, but a Fullerton police sergeant estimated 3,000 to 8,000 people were there").

Other events with similar numbers don't always get stories; an earlier post on this journal gave the thinking on that last year.

California Editor David Lauter wrote back to scores who asked about the event. The gist of his response: No, The Times didn't cover the rally. But yes, The Times has covered the issues that led to anger behind the rally.

Eyewitnesses and experts in recent plane crash stories

A plane crash is news. What people have to say about the crash is part of the story. But whose perspectives actually add enough to warrant publication? Two recent airplane accidents have brought these questions from readers. One story quoted an unnamed person with experience in the field; one quoted and named an eyewitness with no apparent background in aviation.

Mike Holmstrom of San Jose took note of one passage in one of the first-day news stories on the US Airways crash-gliding in New York's Hudson River. Toward the end, the article said:

One longtime commercial pilot who has spent years as a company flight instructor warned that before dubbing Sullenberger a hero, investigators needed to determine whether crew error contributed to the emergency.

The pilot, who did not want to be named, was skeptical that bird strikes shut down both engines.

"I've seen it happen too many times in the simulators -- you get a flameout in one engine and the quick response is to shut down the wrong one," the pilot said."

After the National Transportation Safety Board said that both engines had indeed simultaneously lost power, Holmstrom wrote, "Do us all a favor, and tell the staff of The Times not to speculate so early into an investigation. What were the writers thinking? I wish The Times would come forward & say they blew it by doubting the pilot in this incident."

A December article covering the crash in San Diego of a military jet included this passage:

"It was mushing through the air," Kreischer said. "It was chugging along with what seemed like one engine. Then I heard a roar of engine and all of a sudden, whoop, dead silence.

"This guy could have turned it around and put it in the ocean. He was never going to make it to Miramar."

At the time the story appeared, Christopher Chinman in San Diego objected:

Happy Presidents Day to you, George

George Washington was born on Feb. 22, 1732; Abraham Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809. Yet yesterday was the day called Presidents Day. It's called that by news organizations; it's noted that way in most calendars; signs in store windows advertise Presidents Day sales.

But if you're in the readers' representative office, the approach of the third Monday of February means mainly one thing: Another polite e-mail from Jason Bezis.

Bezis' request to The Times, received last week, resembles in tone and spirit the e-mails he's sent since 2000: "Numerous times in the past 20 years, the Times has incorrectly published that a federal and/or state 'Presidents Day' holiday exists, when, in fact, the February federal holiday is 'Washington's Birthday' and California observes separate and distinct 'Washington's Birthday' and 'Lincoln's Birthday' holidays." (Those links to 2009 government holidays prove his point.)

Bezis, a lawyer, lives in California. That's perhaps why, as he says, it "drives him nuts" that in California papers in particular the day is called Presidents Day. He says, "Here, state government offices and courts were closed last Thursday for what they call 'Lincoln Day.' They are separate and distinct holidays in this state."

The San Francisco Chronicle is among papers that have written thorough accounts of the crusade that one man has been on for years to get everyone to stop calling the third Monday in February "Presidents Day." But the facts in the story didn't change how reporters and editors at that paper referred to the day. Neither have the e-mails sent by Bezis to The Times had an effect on what's referred to in Times' news stories as "Presidents Day."

Clark Stevens, who oversees style and usage at The Times, gives Bezis credit for being technically, legalistically correct. But part of Stevens' job is being mindful of what is in popular use -- what makes the most sense to readers. "It's that time of year again," started a 2004 memo Stevens sent to copy editors. "This coming Monday, Feb. 16, is Presidents Day. Note that it is written without an apostrophe, as in the stylebook. Your holiday will be a lot happier if you don't worry about whether it has a different official name, or what day George Washington was actually born on, or whether Abraham Lincoln has been forgotten. Monday is just Presidents Day." Stevens' note in 2003: "We are going to stick with Presidents Day. If anybody is so moved, they can note that the official title is still Washington's Birthday. But Presidents Day has the advantage of being widely used and understood."

Bezis says he's winding down his efforts to change minds. For years, he used to contact about two dozen news organizations in late January or early February. Now it's just a handful; the main reason he sent a note this year was that it was Lincoln's 200th birthday. He's also watching Sacramento to see if budget cuts might have an effect on the holiday.

Below are articles in various publications over the years about Bezis' interest in the issue. However, the recent process of talking about his campaign seemed to reenergize Bezis, who ended up sending an e-mail that included his final arguments, which are also below.