Beauty ad, story pairing coincidental

Question: Please tell me I’m not the only one who noticed the front page of the Today section yesterday (Tuesday, Jan. 22). Does anyone ever actually look at the page before it gets printed?

The feature article is about getting women to accept their image. The banner ad on the bottom is about Botox, microdermabrasion, facial peels and varicose vein removal. What is the message here? – Ann Elliott

Answer: There’s no question the story and ad on Tuesday created a nice bit of irony. And it might lead readers to conclude that the newsroom and advertising department have absolutely no clue what the other is doing.

And actually, that conclusion is pretty much correct.

We do not pull or adjust news content in order to make it mesh with advertising. That’s a firm, etched-in-stone policy. If we didn’t have that policy, it could open the door to a situation in which we might, for example, pull a story about automotive recalls because we had an ad for a car dealership on the same page.

So this is a case where the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. And we intend to keep it that way. – Ken Paulman, features editor

Question: I know the Spokesman leans a little to the right, but do you have to be so blatant? John McCain’s win appears on the front page above the fold. Hillary Clinton’s win finally gets reported on page 9. Wore me out just looking for it.

I know you don’t claim to be “Fair and Balanced,” and thank God for that. But how about a little more journalistic objectivity? Wasn’t Clinton’s win at least as big a surprise? – Bob Wynhausen, Sandpoint

Answer: It’s campaign season, so this is not the first time nor will it be the last time that we’ll be accused of treating the presidential candidates unfairly.

For starters, let’s be clear about one thing: the editorial stances and endorsements on the editorial pages have absolutely no influence on our news stories or how they are treated. I know folks raise their eyes when they hear this argument, but it’s the simple truth. As the managing editor of The Spokesman-Review, I have no influence on our daily editorials and I am not a member of the editorial board. Conversely, Editorial Page Editor Doug Floyd does not have any role in deciding how we cover the news.

As for the Clinton-McCain treatment in Sunday’s paper, you raise a good question about why McCain was on the front page and Clinton was not. Our judgment on this one was subjective. We felt the victory in South Carolina was more important for McCain at this stage of his campaign. As the story said, the victory gave his candidacy “velocity” and seemed to give his ability to win in the South some more strength. Clinton’s victory, on the other hand, helps her campaign but wasn’t portrayed as a make-or-break proposition for her.

It’s not like we ignored the Clinton victory. There was a substantial story on page A9 that reported the details of her victory.

The Nevada caucuses were finished earlier in the day and the news had already been widely reported on the Web and on television. The South Carolina results came late in the day and represented fresher news, which is always a consideration for us.

I think it is fair to expect that some days one candidate will get a bigger or more prominent story than another. That’s the nature of news. In the end, however, our goal is to provide readers with an evenly balanced picture over the long haul. – Gary Graham, managing editor

Question: Your sub-headline on Friday, Jan. 11, “Experts see region escaping full force of recession” is grossly irresponsible. We’re in a recession?

How could the editors of the S-R allow such a blatantly false and undocumented piece of opinionated drivel pass off as objective journalism? – Mark Dana, Colburn, Idaho

Answer: I have to respectfully disagree with your interpretation of our headline and story about the economy that appeared in Jan. 11’s newspaper. The main headline read, “Area economists hopeful” with a subhead that read, “Experts see region escaping full force of recession.”

Headlines by nature have to be short and succinct. While you assume the headline writer concluded that we’re in a recession, other readers understood that the headline refers to a potential recession. The story makes it abundantly clear that the economists we quoted talked specifically about the “possibility” of a recession.

We count on intelligent readers to do more than just read the headlines. Those who read Bert Caldwell’s story carefully could easily understand that the economists we quoted neither assumed nor claimed we are in a recession at this moment. – Gary Graham, managing editor