Racial identification: descriptions in full

Thursday's report in The Times on a series of armed robberies along Melrose Avenue said, "All three of the robbers have been described as men in their early to late 20s, ranging from 5 feet 6 to 6 feet tall and weighing 150 to 200 pounds."

At least a dozen readers sent a question along the lines of what reader Howard Douglas asked: "Why tell us the gender, age, height and weight of the suspects without telling us their ethnicity? Perhaps writers for The Times are forbidden from giving complete descriptions of suspects. I've reported crimes to the police, and one the first questions is, 'Was he white, black, hispanic or Asian?' Is The Times afraid to repeat that information? Sounds a bit wimpy to me. In the future, give us the whole description or none of it. Example: 'Some people robbed a bank today...' "

That, more or less, is actually how it's supposed to work. The information was originally included by reporter Andrew Blankstein, who had the handout from the local police and the group Melrose Action Neighborhood Watch. It said, "All three suspects have been described as African American males ranging in height of 5'6" - 6'0" tall, 150 –200 pounds – in their early to late 20s."

Says senior copy chief Mark McGonigle, "This was caused by a misunderstanding of our policy on using racial identification. The copy editor took out the racial description supplied by the reporter, thinking that there were not enough other descriptive elements to leave it in. In fact, the policy states that it's all or nothing: Either there's enough information to make for a meaningful description, which should include race, or there's not enough of a description and all the elements of the description should be taken out of the story. I've talked to the copy editor and slot on the story to make sure they understand the policy."

Handling the John Edwards story

Times readers and others since late July have sent notes by the dozens to the readers' representative office, asking if The Times was looking into a story published by the National Enquirer containing allegations about John Edwards. National Editor Scott Kraft sent an e-mail Thursday night to the Times' communications department and the readers' representative office, two departments that have fielded the questions about how this story was being handled. [Update: This posting earlier said that The Times hadn't published anything about the Enquirer reports; in fact, the Opinion LA blog did post an item on July 23 that was a roundup of coverage by others.] Kraft's note:

"We have decided to post, on Top of the Ticket, an item and link to a Charlotte Observer report, quoting Democratic supporters of Edwards on the record as saying that they think he needs to address the National Enquirer report if he hopes to speak at the convention.

"While we have stayed away from that Enquirer report, because we couldn't confirm it, this strikes us as a legitimate story -- that on-the-record Dems, including a former Edwards campaign manager, are criticizing Edwards' decision to stay mum on the topic and saying it might affect his credibility enough that he wouldn't get a speaking slot at the convention. (Those speaking slots haven't been decided yet, the party says.)"

The candidates: Who makes the news?

John McCain might call media coverage of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama "fawning," as Times reporter Maeve Reston wrote on Tuesday, but so did several dozen Times readers in the past few weeks who sent messages like this from Walter Mielke of Pasadena: "Bias towards Obama. Front page everyday. Tired of it."

A recent surge in such comments, with readers also saying they see bias against Republican candidate McCain, started July 11, when an article on McCain's first marriage was published. The story reported that "McCain, who is about to become the GOP nominee, has made several statements about how he divorced Carol and married Hensley that conflict with the public record," and examined the conflicting information. Typical was a response from the reader who wrote an angry e-mail saying that The Times "will do anything to help Obama and hurt McCain."  (Response to those readers is below.)

But it's the string of Page 1 stories and photos that has brought the most recent protests: On Sunday, July 20, the Campaign '08 banner was over a story about the Iraqi prime minister's endorsement of Obama's plan for withdrawing U.S. troops; on Monday the article was about the political furor triggered by that withdrawal plan. On Tuesday the front-page story was "Obama's views resonate in Iraq." (That was the headline in print; headlines on the online versions are often different.) Each story included an above-the-fold photograph. There were front-page stories, too, last week, on July 15 ("Obama re-admonishes blacks"), 16 ("Obama stands by his plan to end war"), and 17 (a profile of Obama and his father headlined "So alike and yet so different").

Wrote another reader: "I can't take four more months of flattering Obama articles and pictures."

It isn't all flattering, say editors, as evidenced in the July 24 front-page: The photo showed Obama in front of thousands in Berlin. However, the article reported that "Fresh polls show that he has been unable to convert weeks of extensive media coverage into a widened lead."

The news itself dictates the amount of coverage, editors point out. Times reporters are on the trail with both McCain and Obama. In recent days, coverage of McCain has included two front-page pieces ("Housing crisis is a test for McCain" on July 19 and "McCain takes a risk on Social Security," July 14), several brief stories as well as two longer ones inside the main section ("McCain wins some respect," about his address before the NAACP convention, Page A14 on July 17; "McCain's turn before La Raza in San Diego," Page A11, July 15). 

Same-sex marriage: How much coverage is too much?

Coverage in Wednesday's Times of the first full day of same-sex marriage in California was too much, said some two dozen readers whose calls or notes came to the readers' representative office. Some cited liberal bias as the reason behind what one called "exaggerated" coverage as measured both by the number of stories and the use of photos.

Carolyn Sherley of Cedar Glen thought that coverage made it seem as if "gay marriages supersede everything else": "So gay marriages are legal. Now do we have to look at continual pictures of women kissing women and men kissing men? Straight marriages never got this much publicity (unless it was a celebrity, of course)." Sherley added up Wednesday's online coverage: two stories and a picture of two men kissing on the California/Local page, three articles on the OC page, one on the Inland Empire page. "This means that in three pages there are a total of seven articles. I think that is excessive, don't you?"

Of the print version, Alexandra Lafkas of Sierra Madre said: "I can't believe you people gave almost four pages to these weddings. We know about the weddings. One page or one article would have been enough. Four pages is ridiculous." In a follow-up call, she added, "This is not world news; we have other things to think about."

The lead story that day on the front page, written by three reporters, reflected an overview of the day in which more than 2,300 marriage licenses were issued statewide. It included political reaction from groups gearing up for the November ballot initiative to amend the state Constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman, but the focus of the story was on couples who got married. A photo on A1 showed two brides holding a baby and kissing at the altar; another shot showed a close-up of hands exchanging wedding rings.

The story continued inside, where it was part of three pages that included vignettes from around the state (links below); a report on Palm Springs' marketing itself as a destination for gay marriages; a look at Virginia, where gay marriage was outlawed in 2004; and a story about media coverage of the day's events. Other than the front page, there were a total of 13 news pages in the main section that day: four devoted to international news, eight to national stories (of which the three-page marriage package was a part) and the index.

As California Editor David Lauter wrote in an e-mail responding to the readers' objections: "Whether one thinks yesterday's events were a landmark of civil rights or the definitive sign of the decline of Western civilization, either way, it was a big deal. We covered it as such. Wednesday was the opening of a huge social change in the nation's largest state -- the state that also happens to be our home. It's the sort of event that generates strong emotions on both sides and almost certainly will be written about, debated and discussed by historians, sociologists and political partisans of all stripes for years to come. More immediately, it's the subject of what seems likely to be a very heated campaign over a ballot measure this fall. All that's pretty much the definition of news."

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.

"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.

Life in the shadows

The Life in the Shadow series has since mid-March been examining the impact of illegal immigration on the region and its residents, and the stories have tried to capture the day-to-day realities of life for those here illegally. The series complements the paper's continuing coverage of the debate over legislative reforms, and the effect of illegal immigration in the state and nation. The effort to reach and reflect the region has extended to having the articles published online in both English and Spanish.

Both the series and translations have brought, predictably, strong reaction.

Four articles have been part of the series: The Column One on March 12 about a woman, in the U.S. illegally, who makes a living by collecting cans and bottles (it's in Spanish here, and there was an earlier posting on this journal). The front-page piece on March 23 about how those who wash cars are often here illegally and get paid under the table -- many times being shortchanged in the process (the translation). The April 2 story, also a Column One, on how families can be divided after someone here illegally dies (the Spanish version).

And the most recent, on April 13, which focused on two young illegal immigrants whose liver transplants were paid for by the state, but whose treatment costs when they turned 21 went to L.A. County -- which doesn't have the resources to cover additional transplants.

Passionate responses include thank yous, such as this from Frank Galvan of Los Angeles in reaction to the April 2 piece: "I appreciated your article on the traumas many undocumented workers face when dealing with a death of a loved one.  Your article helped put a human face on a population which is too often only considered by many to be just a 'problem' for the United States."

And there are objections, such as this from David Duron of Yucaipa, who wrote, "Your penchant for writing sympathetic stories about the 'plight' of illegal aliens has driven me over the brink. I tolerated the reports until I read the article about liver transplants. That was the last straw." And half of the 400 comments offered by readers as online postings were too filled with profanity to be used.

Perspectives on Heston and heaven

Bob Smith of Glendale calls him Chuck Heston -- he knew the man for 20 years and spent time with him at the L.A. Tennis Club -- and was horrified to see the Matt Wuerker cartoon in The Times' opinion pages on April 8.

The drawing, which ran in black and white in The Times, showed Heston at the Pearly Gates hoisting a rifle and wearing an NRA shirt while St. Peter says, "I don't care if the guy says he's Moses! Pry the gun from his cold, dead hands, or he isn't going nowhere..."

In a phone message, Smith called the cartoon "unbelievably tasteless." In a conversation later, he added, "I was horrified to see that caricature in The Times. He was one of the fairest-minded people you'll ever see on this planet. And it's cheap to go after his image after he's passed away."

Many other readers who didn't know Heston personally also raised concerns.  Eric Cooper of Santa Monica also thought the cartoon was in "extremely bad taste": "No matter what his or your views ... the week he passes away is not the time to make him the butt of a joke. Why ridicule someone who can now no longer respond? He lived over 80 years. Ya had plenty of time." Cooper added he doesn't happen to share Heston's perspective on guns.

Robber in a USC sweatshirt

Matt Swanson of Los Angeles sent this question about a March 19 story:

"It was chilling to read that two students were robbed at gunpoint recently while studying in USC classrooms. While you reported in detail what the suspects were wearing, for some reason you neglected to mention their race, which I think would be significant to know since the perpetrators are at large. Given the demographics of the area surrounding USC, I'm wondering if there is some policy at the L.A. Times that prevents identifying suspects' race."

Physical descriptions in the print version of the article included  references to "a man in a red-orange hooded sweatshirt" for the first armed robbery; in the second, the story described "a man ...wearing a black cloth mask as well as a red-hooded sweatshirt with a yellow Trojan emblem on the front."

The story concluded, "LAPD Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner said investigators believe the same person may be responsible, although there were discrepancies in the witness descriptions. One victim described the robber as 18 to 20. The other victim said he was between 20 and 30."

"Scavenging to survive in Pasadena"

Brian Kruid of La Palma asked about the March 12 Column One that featured a woman, in this country illegally, who collects cans and bottles for a living. Juana Rivas, who lives in Pasadena, recycles the empty containers for cash, money that helps keep her family of six afloat.

Kruid started by saying that he thought the story was well written, "and certainly brought out the seemingly intended 'emotional' sense to the reader." But he went on: "Was this just another one of the ever-popular 'find a downtrodden individual and showcase how hard their life is to make everybody feel bad and want to do something to help' journalistic approach? Was this intended to push me into a certain political sphere regarding illegal immigration? Is this news?"

Other readers said they felt as if the Times was "promoting illegal immigration." A few said they thought that Rivas should be turned in to immigration officials; one said that she feared that The Times' writing about her by name would lead to her deportation.

A Republican hidden in plain sight

Quite often this office hears readers say The Times' news coverage shows bias. Usually "liberal" precedes the word "bias"; sometimes readers see a conservative slant.

The most helpful comments are those that give specifics on what led to that reaction. A few readers on Wednesday pointed to one reference to show where they thought a news article showed opinion.

Troublesome snapshots of the campaign trail

Dave Keliher of Los Angeles spoke for a number of readers who have called and written over the past several weeks when on Feb. 20 he wrote, "Enough is enough is enough. On too many occasions when you run photos of Ms. Hillary and Mr. Barack the photos are not balanced. I expect more from you. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at today's paper, Page A16. You have a wonderful picture of Obama, looking like Jesus parting the Red Sea -- pacific, at ease, in control.  (I know it was Moses, but that's not the point.) Now look at Hillary: strained, tense, constipated. What's up with that? I know life is unfair but I expect YOU to find a balance."

Then again are calls like this one from a reader who didn't leave a name: "I’m so tired of opening up the paper and it’s all positive about Clinton and you stick Obama on the back page. Every single day for about a week and a half -– I’m tired of it."