Last Updated: February 03, 2000
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Credibility
As a sensational murder trial loomed, editors and reporters at The Courier
in Houma, La., (circulation 21,000) sat down and discussed plans for coverage.
A sheriff's deputy was accused of holding six bank tellers hostage, shooting
one to death and sexually abusing some of the others. "Each of the five
women, including (the defendant's) ex-wife, would be testifying in open
court about unspeakable crimes committed against them," Courier executive
editor Mike Slaughter wrote in a column two weeks after the trial.
At a metropolitan newspaper, the debate might have been more intense.
When there are a few hundred thousand readers, the reader seems more anonymous.
But for Slaughter and his colleagues at the Courier, the answer came
easily. The deputy's guilt was not at issue; he had already pleaded guilty.
The testimony from victims was to be taken in the penalty phase of the
trial.
"We elected not to name them," Slaughter said.
For Slaughter, decisions like that are at the core of credibility. The
Courier could have sensationalized it, but it did not. This care with stories
has not gone unnoticed by readers. "Their comfort level is high in that
regard," he said.
ACCURACY
Readers seldom call Elizabeth Cook, editor of The Salisbury (N.C.) Post,
with praise.
"Any time there is a mistake in the paper or someone feels misquoted,"
talk of the sins of "The Media" rain down, she said.
Damaged credibility for the small papers - Cook's has 25,000 circulation
- which serve up a solid daily report of highway fatalities and downtown
revitalization debates, has more to do with getting calendar items wrong
than with fanning the flames of media conspiracy theories.
Like at so many newspapers, one thing Cook hears often is the angry
cry: "Don't you have proofreaders?" And of course, the answer - like at
so many papers - is no. Most have not for a generation or more.
At the Post, part of the solution has been more "old-fashioned proofing,"
just not the kind done by a retired hand from the news desk or a moonlighting
school teacher. "We're getting reporters out into the composing room to
check errors of fact, spelling and grammar, things that years ago maybe
we were catching on the desk."
While the Post is making progress - "I do think we're making fewer mistakes"
- Cook knows restoring credibility is a steep climb. "It only takes one
(mistake) to make the person say you get everything wrong," she said.
- Bill Moss, executive editor,
Times-News, Hendersonville, N.C.
