Now that's a correction

I'd go for two somebodies -- reporter and editor.

 

Copy editor? -- No. Why?

It seems it was the underlying reporting that was all screwed up. I would think the reporter's immediate editor should be in just as much trouble, though, unless the wool was really pulled over his/her eyes by the writer.

 

Here's the original story (with the correction having been posted at the top):

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/feb/26/shooting-rattles-affluent-suburb/

Apparently, the Sun (which is owned and published by the Review-Journal but has a different editorial staff) used online reader comments from the original Review-Journal story. Sounds like the reporter and the copy editor both fucked up.

 

Original story had some flaws, but this correction goes way too far, and I would have to assume was driven by angry advertisers threatening to pull their business.

 

On the News side in our shop, a local story like that would have passed through reporter, assigning editor (or night metro editor after 6 pm), copy editor, slot editor, and at least one proofer (more if it's on 1A or 1B), any of whom could blow the whistle on a story as substantially flawed as that one.

It sounds more like the story was pitched as a Summerlin gang story, and the reporter tried hard to follow that pitch even though the details went in another direction.

Firing? No. These are mistakes that are correctable by the reporter and various editors doing the necessary due diligence and checking facts in something as readily accessible as a clip file or data base. It's cause for a stern reminder on protocol -- we follow certain procedures because they keep us from making these kinds of mistakes. And maybe a sterner, "Don't let this happen again."

 

They could also have been threatened with all kinds of holy hell from the affected school districts. However, in a case of such egregious errors, you'd hope the newspaper staff ran the correction solely to clear up the mistakes, not because of advertising pressure.

 

New side still has proofers?

 

If this was a news story and not a column (and they list the author as the city hall reporter, not a columnist), then the first few grafs alone should be enough to set off all sorts of alarms in the head of a copy editor. There are blatant signs sprinkled throughout of a disdain for the community's lifestyle and wealth. This thing read much more like a column than a news story. If this came across my desk, I would have had serious issues with it.

 

The story quoted two of many racist-tinged comments from a Web site to support the thesis that some people in Summerlin held racist views. (The victim, who lived in Summerlin and did not know his assailant, was white; the alleged shooter, who did not live in Summerlin, was black.) The problem was that the quotes were anonymous and, because of the way the Web works, could have come from anywhere in the world. Although some people in Summerlin may hold racist views, these quotes, because of the lack of identity of the writers, in no way proved that possibility. It is the Sun’s policy not to run anonymous letters to the editor and in the future the Sun will not run anonymous comments from Web sites.

-- The paper obviously didn't have any policy in place before this, so the reporter did nothing necessarily wrong by using them. You can argue that the reporter and editor used poor judgment by using inflammatory comments, but you can also see they were trying to show readers that Summerlin might not be the utopia its developers claim. Regardless, the bottom line is the paper didn't have a policy against using message board quotes (and I've seen countless other papers use them as well).

In another place in the story the Sun called the 311 Boyz, whose crimes were in the news several years ago, a Summerlin gang. The 311 Boyz were a group of white teenagers from mostly well-off families who came together through attendance at Centennial High School, which is not in Summerlin. They committed a notorious assault at a party at a house in Summerlin, but their activities ranged around the northwest part of the metropolitan area. They were not a Summerlin gang. The story also stated that none of the 311 Boyz was sentenced to jail. In fact, four of them were sentenced to jail and a fifth alleged member of the gang also was sentenced to jail after he violated his probation.

-- These are the biggest fact errors in the story. Would like to know how the reporter botched the part about none being arrested.

Finally, in an effort to show that crime around Palo Verde High School was as high as crime elsewhere, the story attempted to compare crime statistics within one mile of Palo Verde High School with crime statistics within one mile of Durango High School, which is near Russell Road and Rainbow Boulevard. Several things were wrong here.
First, the story mistakenly used “incident reports” as crime statistics. Incident reports are a listing of the calls police respond to. Some turn out to be crimes and some do not. By calling all the incidents crimes, the Sun reported the number of crimes around the two schools to be much higher than they were. And the story wrongly counted traffic accidents among the incidents.
Furthermore, it was inaccurate to compare the mile around Palo Verde High School, which is a very developed area, to the mile around Durango High School, which is still largely undeveloped. Had the story taken into account the levels of development around the two schools it would have been clear that there were comparatively far more incidents around Durango.

-- The reporter should have used the word incidents instead of crimes, but he did explain rather well that these were just reports, not actual proven crimes. He also broke down the incidents by type -- "43 traffic accidents, 45 burglaries ..." While I agree that the traffic accidents didn't need to be in there, this section wasn't nearly as misleading as the paper says in the correction. There is some good info in there ... that there have been similar numbers of fights, armed assaults, etc., near the two high schools.

All these errors tended to give the following story an anti-Summerlin tone, which was not intended and which the Sun regrets.

-- This sentence is just bizarre and way, way over the top. Not sure I've ever seen one like it.

All in all, I agree that the story could have been better. And I'm usually the first in line saying we, as an industry, need to be better about admitting our mistakes. But if I worked in this newsroom, I would be pretty wary of challenging any "powers that be" in the future.

 

The Sun is in no way owned by the Review-Journal. It is printed on the Review-Journal's press and circulated from there, and advertising is done through the R-J. But Greenspun Media owns the Sun and pays its newsroom employees. To say the R-J owns and publishes the Sun is almost to say the R-J bears some responsibility for the Sun's editorial screw-ups -- the R-J just prints the pages exactly as the Sun newsroom (located 15 miles away) releases them.

It's still a JOA, and Stephens Media (R-J) does not own Greenspun Media (Sun). If this story had been libelous, and the Sun had gotten sued, the R-J wouldn't have been touched by the lawsuit. Just to clarify.

 

Or you let me write.

 

DING DING DING DING

What a fucking grovelling throw under the bus, all to point out out that Sunderlin is a wonderful place (for rich people) to live.

As Cliff Claven said to Norm: "There's nothing wrong with a manly tear, but never blubbering."