One little letter

Did you spot it? A typo on our Ryne Sandberg commemorative section cover made it all the way through production before anyone saw it. Question is, what do you do about it? Does an error like this (that is, small enough that no one in the production process noticed it) justify the expense of reprinting the entire section in these budget-strapped times?

Well, we didn’t reprint it. And now, the sentiment around the table appears to be that we probably should have. There weren’t immediate answers to questions of how much it would have cost or whether a reprint was even feasible (remember - we’re talking 100,000+ copies here).

The most important question, though, is whether an error such as this one has an impact on our overall credibility. There are typos in the newspaper all the time - that’s just the reality of a 24-hour publication cycle - but this was on a commemorative section that, presumably, some readers will keep around for a while.

Story underplayed?

Sunday’s investigative piece on sex abuse in Spokane in the 1970s ran at the bottom of Page One, and some editors said it should have run higher on the page. The decision to position the story at the bottom of the page was based on two things: First, it was a contextual piece, not breaking news, and therefore didn’t justify a lead position. Second, we were sensitive about confronting readers with such an alarming story on a Sunday. However, some felt that playing the story at the bottom of the page may create an impression that we aren’t confident in our reporting, which assuredly is not the case.

Coming up

A couple of callers have told us there’s a moose calf running around in Comstock Park - we’ve sent videographer Colin Mulvany to check it out. Could make for intersting footage. Or, the whole thing may turn out to be nothing more than a wild moose chase…