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Show What did we do to prompt 23 phone calls? r the editor's column J By MARC If I I HADDOCK publication carried the controversial con-troversial letter, but 23 people didn't call me up to complain -- and not anywhere near 23 people showed up to picket the store. Not even the stupid things I said about Highland a couple of years ago prompted 23 phone calls. There were about six calls then, most of them from people who were really angry. And I could tell by the way people looked at me that they didn't agree with my opinion. But 23 people didn't let me know they were angry about it by calling. At this paper, we've left out the TV listings when we had to, and didn't get 23 calls. We've held the list of babies for weeks and didn't get 23 calls. Several other stories have gathered dust for a week or two without prompting that kind of 1 uapuilBC So what could we leave out that would make 23 people call to complain? com-plain? You see, the problem is we just have so much space to put the news -- and we almost always have more news than we have space. Small papers live by a creed that paraphrases the New York Times: "All the news that fits, we print." And that's where we get in trouble. It comes down to deciding what news is most important to put in the newspaper, and it's a judgment call. After all, every story is the most important to the people involved in the story. And so who is to decide whether we run the story about the horseshoe tournament or the music recital, if we have to pick between the two? Just for your information, here are the guidelines to determine what goes in the paper and what doesn't: Nearness - The main point of a community newspaper like this one is to tell about what is going on in the community. If we are faced with two stories, and one takes place in Provo while the other takes place in your home town, we run the home town story -always. Timeliness - This is tough for a newspaper that only comes out once a week in a community covered in varying degrees by three daily newspapers. Still, we try to keep our news fresh. And if a meeting is happening this week, we make a real effort to get in this week's newspaper. Size - How big is the event? A fire that burns down a home is a bigger story than a brush fire. The greater the magnitude of an event, the greater coverage it should receive. Of course, it's a newspaper's job to carry a wide range of news to appeal to a broad cross-section of readers. And we try to do that. too. does the story affect? We try tor; stories affecting more people belt" stories that relate to a small-group, small-group, if we have to makea choice Policy - Some stories are deft; j by policy, although newspapers' I to be pretty flexible. Neverthele we try to keep promotion piecest:; minimum and put real news into pages. Newspaper policy, : defining what types of stories , can't run, help us do that. So, what did we leave out? i last week we left out the w installment of "The Sr Testament." That's right, "The Storm If ment." After all, it doesn't of the criteria I've listed above. Nevertheless, we have n commitment to our readers lot this installment package, and"; we make that kind of commit and fail to deliver, we letyw-readers.down. letyw-readers.down. But last week there just any place to put "The Testament" and, in a moment of decision, I said. leave it out one week ano-anybody ano-anybody notices." They noticed, all right. V three noticed enough to can t complain. Who knows i ho ' noticed and just though, newspaper had done som-stupid som-stupid again. . But they won't have to more. .. $ We might make stupid ffli but we try to only make the J There's a lot of Storm J , in today's newspaper, w enjoy. 01 And if you find some , stupid that we've done, let us know. u( We like to hear from)0 it's just because wefou , Every once in a while, we will do something really stupid in the newspaper. I know. Some of you think we do something stupid every week. But we only hear about the really stupid things we do, and even then complaints don't come in large numbers. There just aren't enough readers in our coverage area to generate a lot of comment, because most of you have to be pretty upset before you are motivated to pick up the telephone and call in a complaint. But last week we did something stupid enough to prompt 23 people to call and complain. For a newspaper our size, that's a landslide of public concern - the kind of complaint we aren't going to take for granted. We know that for each person who took the time to call, there a lot more of you out there who were upset - to varying degrees - but who weren't upset enough to register a formal complaint. What prompted this extraordinary public outcry? And it was extraordinary. ex-traordinary. Nothing I've seen since I've been in the newspaper business has prompted 23 calls. The outrageous editorials 1 wrote at BYU (where we had a lot more readers - and a higher-than-average share of kooks) only brought in a couple of letters - the idiotic type for which college newspapers are noted. When I was with the Emery County Progress, I ran a letter-to-the-editor in which the writer called local construction workers who were building UP&l.'s power plants "trailer trash." The letter got a lot of people exercised, to the point that they set up a picket line in front of the letter-writer's newly acquired grocery store. The television stations came to cover the picket lines after my small |