Letters to the (Times) editor
July 10, 2007 at 3:14 pm by Wayne GarciaSuzie Siegel is an old friend of mine, a sharp and committed former Tampa Tribune reporter, a progressive female voice and a cancer survivor.
She is also a critic of the way the St. Pete Times handles its corrections and clarifications, especially online. She wrote to me, “The most intriguing issue is allowing readers to post comments online. I think it gives readers a false sense that they are correcting misinformation. The standards also seem much more lax than what gets printed on paper. In other words, newspapers will let someone post a comment questioning someone’s character to a degree that would not be allowed in print, without some sort of facts or allowing the person the chance to respond.”
She is not alone in her belief that Times editors don’t listen heard enough to those who complain about inaccurate, misleading or incomplete coverage; I hear from more than a handful of news subjects who make the same complaints repeatedly but do not go on the record because they are still in the position of making news and don’t want to anger the newspaper.
So I thought I would share with you her latest e-mail to the Times about its coverage, with her permission (I added the links):
Begin forwarded message:
From: Suzie Siegel <xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 29, 2007 2:42:20 PM EDT
Subject: Re: Times correctionsI wish the Times would do some soul-searching on corrections.
First of all, I don’t know where you put corrections online; I couldn’t find “corrections” on a site map.
Letting readers post comments isn’t sufficient because those comments are not archived with the stories. For example, a June 24 story on Hooters implied that the corporation didn’t feel comfortable fighting breast cancer until one of its beloved employees got publicity for her battle with the disease in 2006. I posted a comment noting that Hooters financed the “Owl’s Den,” a conference room near the old breast-cancer clinic at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa before 2006. This questions the premise of the story, but only those who read after me saw my post.
Also June 24, the Times ran a story that said: “Today Unitarian Universalist delegates might vote on a resolution … that would support the rights of transgender people.” I thought that sentence implied incorrectly that UUs had not supported transgender rights in the past. In reality, the vote was to “pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act with transgender inclusion and protection.” In other words, UUs voted to push for passage of legislation to prevent employment discrimination against transgender people. I tried several times and could not reach the reporter. I left a message on her editor’s phone, but no one has called me back.
Even when I’ve talked to reporters and editors, it has been for naught. The Times ran a story Feb. 20 about a principal who was retiring because she has metastatic leiomyosarcoma. She has the same diagnosis that I have, and we both go to Moffitt. The story included the phrase: “Doctors later explained that her form of cancer does not respond to chemotherapy …” Actually, Moffitt gives chemotherapy to leiomyosarcoma patients all the time. I got complete remission for 18 months from chemotherapy. I passed along an email from a sarcoma doctor, explaining why the Times was wrong. Still, the Times chose not to run even a clarification. Your refusal to correct or clarify stories hurts your credibility.
