 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.
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 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.
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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.”)
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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.
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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.
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 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:
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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.
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 Maureen Gamble of Wichita wrote, "I appreciate when the news media give me the facts and even a little 'color' about an event. I do expect, however, that the writer has taken the time to do some background research on the topic and reports fairly on the events. This leads me to my questions. Why would you assign a writer that clearly knows nothing about dogs in general or dog shows specifically to write 1,000 words about the most prestigious dog event in this country? Assigning a person who apparently doesn't even care about dogs is like asking a principled Vegan to cover a bullfight!"
Gamble is writing about recent pieces by Sports columnist T.J. Simers. Her e-mail continued: "There must have been some reason the writer was sent to cover the event. Did the scheduled reporter become ill and couldn't travel? You couldn't find a stringer in the NYC area that actually might approach the assignment in a professional manner? I mean, what were you thinking?"
There was the Wednesday column that referred to "four ugly critters chosen Monday night to be included in Best in Show." There was the Tuesday column that called one contender "a nasty little grunt known as a Brussels griffon." Finally, no doubt to the relief of many Times-reading dog lovers, Thursday was the last day Simers was at the show, as a video attests.
E-mail complaints about treatment of the dog show have come in by the dozens, spurred in part by suggestions on various websites to write to The Times.
The truth is, the L.A. Times doesn't usually send a staffer to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. That it got staff coverage at all this year is because the Sports columnist chose to take his show on the road and landed in New York City.
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"R&B star Rihanna is cooperating with investigators building a domestic violence case against her boyfriend, the singer Chris Brown, a police source said Monday," is the opening line in a news story published Tuesday, but it was a story a day earlier that brought questions and, in a few cases, condemnation of The Times.
The issue: Whether The Times should have published Rihanna's name as the accuser in that first-day news story.
As a post on this journal a year ago noted, the consideration on whether to withhold names is usually reserved for cases involving allegations of rape. (From the L.A. Times stylebook: "The Times does not name rape victims in most cases. Any exception to this standard, for whatever reason, must be approved by the editor, the managing editor, the associate editor or the senior editor.")
But the story unfolding over the weekend involved accusations of domestic violence.
Danny Shea, media editor at HuffingtonPost, wrote on his blog, "The Los Angeles Times decided to run Rihanna's name — despite the LAPD's refusal to confirm her identity, citing state laws meant to protect abuse victims' privacy."
A few others who sent e-mails thought that news organizations have a rule to omit victims' names in certain crime stories. Reader Adrienne Archer thought identifying Rihanna was "sleazy": "If Mr. Brown did these things he should be punished but if his girlfriend was his victim (which the LAPD did not confirm) she should not be. But you have done just that."
Kay Hagan of Santa Fe wrote, "You could not have known for certain that Chris Brown's assault victim had not been sexually violated as well as beaten up, since the police were withholding her name."
To the several individuals who have written, California Editor David Lauter has responded with the following note.
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 Though The Times' Jan. 21 coverage of the inauguration brought sold-out newsstands and multiple press runs, it also spurred some quibbles and questions, with multiple comments made along three lines: lack of color in Wednesday's special section; allegations of a missing president in a montage on Sunday's special section; and criticisms of the Jan. 21 headline.
- Some readers complained there were too few full-color photographs in Wednesday's extra main section. Wrote Anne M. Brown of Fullerton: "Except for the color photograph on the front page and the crowd shot on the special section, there were no color photographs presenting the first couple during the inauguration or the attire worn by the first couple for the inauguration balls. Nothing to capture the event in the bold, striking way that color would have. You show the Hollywood stars in all their radiance when attending award shows, but this historic event is relegated to black and white."
As Brown pointed out, Page A1 featured a huge (full color) photo of the president being sworn in, but Pages A19 to A46, a separate section labeled "The Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama," included only seven news pages with color. Blame it on the capacity of the presses: Printing a page in color requires that it be processed four times, which limits the number of such pages for a day's edition. Editors and the advertising department juggle which pages will get color. (Those photos and more were online and in color.)
- Of the main headline on Jan. 21, "Obama Calls for Hope in Face of Cold Reality," with the deck headline reading, "A tearful yet jubilant crowd hangs on the president's words as they echo across the National Mall," Christopher and Barbara Haire wrote that they were disappointed: "The L.A. Times missed the mark with their sober headline for their offering about the inauguration of an American president. People wanted a headline to celebrate with, and one they could pass down to their children and grandchildren; one that cried out about this mark in history, this momentous event. It did nothing for us. Sorry!"
Executive Editor John Arthur oversees the front page; senior copy chief Tim Lynch wrote the headline. They knew the fact that this was America's first inauguration of an African American president meant the page would be a historical keepsake. But they wanted to balance the unprecedented nature of the event with the breaking news too -- what the new president said. How they did that, and what other newspapers showed on their fronts, follows the jump.
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Readers' representative Jamie Gold has worked in the readers' representative office since 1999. She was appointed readers' representative in 2001.
