Our mission: truth and accuracy

By Terrie Lafferty Drago
Bonanza Publisher, tdrago@tahoebonanza.com
April 27, 2008

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As journalists, sometimes we are trying so hard to get the story right, that we do not perform due diligence by providing you, our reader, information in a timely fashion.
We don’t have an ombudsman on staff, (an ombudsman is an internal critic who reviews commentary and criticism from readers and seeks to ensure our paper upholds its own standards of editorial integrity), but we are our toughest critics when we don’t perform our job to the best of our ability.

An ombudsman’s job is like putting our newspaper staff under a microscope and opining about how we made a decision and whether it was the right decision — whether it’s an editorial viewpoint, a photo choice or maybe why we don’t choose to name a source. And it can also be a small peek into our world of the hows-and-whys of our decision-making.

Recently, we published on our opinion page several letters by readers and we also published a column by a regular community columnist, Andy Whyman, with the topic focused on the redevelopment of the Tahoe Biltmore and the Boulder Bay project.

One of our staff writers has been working for several weeks on an in-depth story about this particular redevelopment project and we have received a number of phone calls from readers with the usual concerns that arise when redevelopment is the topic.

We were so intent on researching a story which reflected an accurate and comprehensive report of the facts that we sat on it for too long and I believe we allowed a debate to occur on our opinion pages. I believe our caution of publishing a balanced story did not meet our high standards of public service to our readership.

We erred in the respect that we did not balance out the debate with ongoing factual stories about the redevelopment. In addition, facts in the letters also were “spun” to the advantage of the letter writer and I believe were taken out of context thus were inaccurate.

Our opinion page represents differing views of our community and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bonanza. Our policy is to review letters to the editor and reject those which are libelous or in bad taste. I believe our watchdog copyediting by our staff failed this past week. Our reputation of being a viable and accurate source respected by our community as being the voice of our community is important to us. I apologize to Boulder Bay president Roger Wittenberg for the vicious written attacks which were printed within our pages in a letter in the Wednesday, April 23 issue.

Our interim editor Kevin MacMillan, was foreshadowing what actually happened when he wrote in his column of April 11 (Opinion, page 6), we were going “to encounter a few bumps in the road.” His reference was directed at the fact that we would miss the presence of our editor Tanya Canino, in our newsroom while she is on her part-time medical leave. Her expertise and veteran news sense is relied on by our newsroom staff members.

Everyone has their own viewpoint. Andy Whyman’s statement in his column of April 16 (Opinion), that so many small town papers have a “vanilla taste about them,” is one viewpoint.

Yes, he is right on one point. We like to print nice stories about people doing good deeds. We don’t want a reputation of sensationalizing news. But I disagree with some of his other points. That’s why if you really take a good review of our paper, you will discover a consistent attempt at balance. I assure you we do not shy away from the tough story as Mr. Whyman seems to suggest in the April 16 column, but we believe it imperative to have to get the story right.

Information is power and we do realize that. In an April column written by the senior editor of American Journalism Review, Carl Sessions Stepp wrote about journalists today and their future. According to Stepp, journalists seem uneasy and anxious these days, but their main concern isn’t about whether journalism will survive, or even whether they will have jobs. Their biggest stress, he says, is “will they be able to continue doing the job right? ‘The hardest question,’ as one puts it, ‘is how to maintain accuracy with less time.’"

This gets back to my original point. The step we failed to take was delivering quality and service to our readers. We did not use our collective brain power to take that leap forward and report on a necessary story because we were afraid to fail. Our job is to deliver reliable information, be entertaining and connect with our community.
We continually make an effort to be a credible source to the community and to our readers. That’s why we are our toughest critics. Although our readers are not privy to our weekly news meetings, the discussion that goes on reflects that this is the case. Our 2008 reader’s panel will have their first meeting May 30 and will be reviewing these topics.

I have some battle scars from my own career as a journalist and I expect our under-30 news team will earn some of their own as we transition through the next 6 months without our editor at the helm full-time. Although sometimes cynical, they are also idealistic and altruistic as well.

Instead of being nervous-Nellies, we should have taken decisive action and powered forward to do what we do best: cover the story in a fair and balanced fashion delivering the facts, while providing issues and both sides to discussions as they surfaced. In addition, we should have been better watchdogs and edited the raunchy personal attacks.

We failed in our role as journalists to be a trusted and truthful monitor and disseminate news in a timely fashion. Our model implores us to control the flow and dominate efficiency, content and format.

Sessions wrote in the April issue of American Journalism Review: “In a widely discussed essay in the Washington Post in January, the outspoken former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, executive producer of HBO's "The Wire," asked, ‘Isn’t the news itself still valuable to anyone?’" Sessions wrote: “I would answer that the news itself is more valuable than ever. Information is power. In an information age, good information is not just valuable but invaluable.”

I agree. And I hope our readership of 87 percent continues to trust that we hold the truth in high regard.

Terrie Lafferty Drago is publisher of the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza.