Salt Lake Tribune | 1999-05-23 | Page 26

AA-2 OPINION TItheSalt Lake Tribune Reader Advocates Hear Similar Sunday, May 23. 1999 NIZAets Complaints Around the Globe READER ADVOCATE A week ago, 30 ombudsmen/ reader ad vocates (most representing newspapers) met in Chicago for our annual meetings and workshops. Professionally, this group is known as the Organization of News Ombudsmen seven women also hold that title but wecalled ourselves ONO (“Oh, no!”), asin a journalistic cry of anguish when werespond to a mistake. misplaced newsjudgment orethics lapse. This year’s ONO meetings were led by our host, Chicago Tribune public editor George Langford. There were ombuds: SHINIKA SYKES menfrom11 countries, including Canada the first American victory of the war. Since McCormick's death in 1955, Can tigny has been managed as a recreational Turkey, France, The Netherlands, Israel Japan, Brazil and Venezuela Our titles vary. Some are called public editors, others and educational park. are reader advocates, de: The Robert R. fensores del lector (reader defenders in can Society of Newspaper ) Journalism Credibility reader representatives. And the way we do our jobs is often equally diverse. in Japan, the chief ombudsman of the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shim bun(circulation 10 million) Project, whosegoal is to correct credibil ity problems and build reader trust in four major areas: accuracy, eliminating sensationalism, reducing bias, and “connecting” with readers t daily newspape! (Melbourne) Florida Today, San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald Tribune. The (Newport News, Va.) Daily Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, The (Portland) heads upa department of 27 ombudsmen, who not only take readercriticism six days a week, but also review andcritique the newspaper's content W@ In SanDiego, the reader representa tive fields complaints from readers and writes all corrections and a weekly col Oregonian, and The (Colorado Springs) umn. This is similar to the role held by the ombudsmen, reader advocates and public editors at 37 out of1,520 U.S. news papers. This yearalone, three of the na tion’s largest newspapers Gazette corporate them for their own needs and mare As you can imagine, the session on. ASNE’s study of public attitudes about media credibility stirred hope and angst While the study paid particular attention to the faults of newspapers, it left no room for television journalists to gloat. Survey general filed lawsuits against the tobacco industry? They sought to recoup the bil than TV news for being more careful in their research, offering better explana lions ofdollars states spent on heath care caused by tobacco use and to change the name, way the tobacco industry markets its than your name respondents An Amsterdam newspaper, we learnedat the meeting, decided to respond by experimenting with a good-news-only “rated newspapers higher days of being bombarded losing about somethingthey hold sacredor it is about individuals’ private lives. If I learned anything from this year's meetings, it is that people want the news media to be credible, so that they may trust the decisions journalists make on their behalf Granted, this is not to say that news: readers’ complaints about curling cor ners of their newspapers. They get the ame complaints in Tokyo papers should be drivenonly by what the public says it does ordoes not want. There In past years, we have been greeted by the mayor of Philadelphia, the former ed itor of Washington Post, the executive editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune and others. But there was something par will always be instances when the right thi 2 to do is the unpopular thing to do. wspapers must x int ticularly impressive about holding one day of meetings at Cantigny, the 500-acre Wheaton, Ill, estate of the late Col. Robert R. McCormick, The Chicago Tribune ‘s legendary editor and publisher. During World War I, McCormick was commander of the Ist Battalion, 5th Field Artillery, part of the First Division, He » the courage to yr perhaps not print contro Ihe Reader Advocate’s phone numberis 2015, Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, renamed the estate Cantigny in honor of Utah reader advocate 84110. E-mail sitrib.com level exposure is the Jord aware or he regula 1 T t anger an result al’s right to 1 p 1 law la learly that interf wit enje proper $ or ar other de ! any smoke renter half about of the settlement money for funds hy Utah voters should tell to ensure the settlement money MAUREEN NEWMAN. RN. American Heart Association volunteer Sandy 1 with the ty threaten your health or from enjoying your f could be because the action 4 tv the individual's health, of fitution states that likely to interfere rs enjoyme t of their home find another route through Salt Lake. Again, the test is ‘ himor obstructs his use of the property Home activities that are cla fled as nuisances along with tobai moke include loud parties, drug dealin p Under the law, the federal government has aright to recoup its share na AU's decide before entering a lease if igarette smoke is a hazard they wish te word By requiring that landlords specifi he ta prevention and control programs is spent wisely. Congress can send the ly state if smoking is allowed ir their partments, the law er bles a renter to ‘void atleast one nuisance in their new Unfortunately, no law protec Hinst Just plain obnoxious ne shbor Many readers could probat re important nuisances to be like knowing that the 1 ell one of the limiter yunty and downtown, hould not be treated ited amounts of tobac k wvate respir 1 from wer lisar i I of the smoke has to drift casion, chances ar moking near the apartmer i to get renter evicted, but fam ifter funding comprehensive tob; money back to the states on the condition that at least 25 percent is spent on tobacco inaceeptable, regardless of how litth he actually drift into any one apart nt And for anyone who has sensitiv 1y to cigarette smoke, even the slightest 1 could cause undue suffering Pu ther, the goal of the law is not to hara: effort tc guests tobacco-control programs. Florida re cently announced. over a nine-month pe riod, a 19 percent drop in smoking While cigarette smoke seems fairly in nocuoUus compared to the other activities {isan established health risk. Moreover king, the } moke can on who actua also sue the lan any bat tobacco use. We knowthese programs work. We've seen tobacco use decrease significantly in states that invested in spent ontobacco control and prevention una per tobacco smoke, according iture, does both ines, on the other hand, are doingeither, so far Salt Lake City teacher ar rimir ern be ¢ Utah Bar Forum, sigatt ph ase include your full idress and daytime telephone numbers. Information other file a joint return with only one wife or withall wives? If he files a joint tax return with only one wife, are the other wives considered dependents? To claim someone as a dependent one must furnish more that one half of the cost to claim that per- and the city in which you live are kept confidential. ® Keep it short. i Velopir Concise theme letters are more kely to be publi hed M Please type and double space | etters are condensed and edited Because of the volume of mail all submissions are publish. @ Mail to Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune. P.O, Box 867, Salt Lake ( tab BALL @ Our fax number is [phone]. sonas a dependent If the family receives government wel fare aid, that raises another question. If you take the income of the family and compare that with the government aid what is the comparison? What is the basis for the government subsidizing illegal conduct? Further, what is the reasoning TS ES smoking. keep kids from starting to that a significant portion of it will be Environmental With tax time havingrecently passed and withall of the news coverage ofpo lygamy, I wonder if anyone has looked into their tax filings, Does the husband submitting letters to the B-When smoke, uncover the unethical marketing and advertising by the tobacco industry and fund research that will help us com first place We have a choice We can ignore the tobacco problem or we can invest the money that’s available now to reduce to baceo use and iffering and cost that yo with it lease doe was family lion every year. The only way to break the cycle of spending is to use the settlement money on programs that will help people quit problem that they sued to correct in the nuisance To yet out of a suit for lertin smoke drift. smoker lost that the lease agreement of the px complait pecitically states that smoking is allowed in other apartment and the renter by signing th lease, that she ha nformed that t bacco smoke might drift into her make nesses cost Utah taxpayers over$200 mil control programs. Otherwise, states may decide to spend tobacco settlement funds on other public projects ignoring the damages or face an injune 04 smoking in the apartment moket might also be evicted Tobaeco smoke which drift vat least twice ina two week period icon: \ the Sh Smoking-related ill what. ifany, money should be retained by JEAN HILL Protection Agency, drifting smoke is an actionable offense. A person accused of allowing tobaces to drift into the ypartment of another may have « smoke each year. share of the money, there is no assurance 4 known carcino of peopleeach year. Over 8,000 kids start to the national level to pay back Medicar« costs. If Congress waives the federal uit. But the situation fits squarely within the nuisance laws of Utah The Utah Legislature has declared that Wy But watch out! The American Heart Association thinks this is wrong. Tobacco money should be used to fix tobacco’s ills. In the 1.8., tobacco use kills more that 400,000 Cong What is a nuisance? 1-15 construction? The closing of Main Street? How about the recent case of a renter who was offended by tobacco smoke drifting into her apart ment from another apartment? While most would agree the first two examples are nuisances. many were stunned that the third example actually lead toa law each state. Now that $200 billion is comingto the states, there are signs that not a single spent to treat smoking-relateddisease. In the coming weeks, Congress will decide Does Smoke Get in Your Eyes? Utah Law Might Clear the Air wecordin, problem in penny will be spent on tobacco programs facts presented in context. Readers also want investigative reporting, unless it is their jobs, the Amsterdampaper ditched Presumably, the sett ment money should address the tobacco the opinion page. However, they want the the good-news experiment WAnd Osami Okuya, chief ombuds: man at the Yomiuri Shimbun. told howhe laughed after reading a column | wrote last year where I mentioned Tribune moke deadly product. readers want journalists to give them just “the facts” and leave their commentary to with complaints about its “callousness Crimes of Polygamy Where to Write Remember whenthestates’ attorneys respondents. For example, newspaper that the company’s profits had improved. tobac Letters from The Tribune’s readers TobaccoSettlement tions and details in news stories and hav ing a higher standard for accuracy. But even with that, the study con tained a numberof mixed signals from edition. Alas, it picked a day when an im portant local company held its annual meetingand announced majorlayoffs, On that a the paper happily reported only ince THE PUBLIC FORUM newspapers put in placethis yeararedesigned so that other newspapers may in geles Times, The Atlanta Journal Consti tution and The Miami Herald an opportunity to be heard at the paper's highest level At these yearly meetings, | am always minded of the similarities of concerns raised by readers everywhere. For exam ple, consider the complaint weall have eard: “There is not enough good news in the newspaper. and insensitivity” toward thes arethetest sites where con crete initiatives are being developed in an effort to increase public trust and heighten credibility. Strategies these The Los An appointed an ombudsmanto givereaders After several McCormick Tribune Foundationis also the principal sponsor Spain), ombudsman(in Montreal) or In response to Freda Aron’s commen: tary (Forum, April 19) onthestate of our society after the Century from Heil” that needlessly type the wrongs of oursociety (past and present) and does nothing to improve conditions. By viewing the world through a microscopeof cynicism ind selectivity we neglect to acknowledge how much the world has improved throughout the last 100 years Our It's for hypoer animal rights » bomb leather a stores hypocrisy to bomb REESE HENRY Midway Growth Logos Do any of the animals proposed as Olympic mascots exist in Salt Lake City? Perhaps. But my choice to represent the Olympic motto of stronger, higher and fasterare the bulldozer, the crane and the gravel truck. They are definitely plentiful in ourhabitat DENNIS GUY-SELL Salt Lake City small little planet will never be a prove upon the problems. Nelson Man dela, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and the men who sacri ficed their lives during World War II to utopi nor will it even come close, but we do our absolute best to try and im 4 West Side Benefits end Hitler's Third Reich have all done what they could do and now it’s our turn. Amber Wulle (Forum, April 25) only perpetrates the elitist attitudes that per- if this century is the “perfected route to hell,” what would the 19th century be called? imperialists gradually choking that she, at her tender youngage, thinks she has the answer. the life out of Africa and thousands of Native Americans relocated, and finally Eastside high school populations are demographically mostly white and eco slaughtered by American military for are just two examples of the horrible atrocities that took place in the1800s. We need to realize that our century isn't to blame for a lack of humanity and com passion it’s us. While some of us choose to take action and combat the weakness in society, others choose to only write about what caused them. Lastly Freda asked: “And life can get worse? Unfortunately, if we continually buy into better sex. A still smaller faction those with a Straight Edge lifestyle members of the violent hate-edge gan, 4 we have miraculously endured, Fredais one of the many self-righteous Americans who sit in front of their computer and it can never get meateeast side schools, The tragic part is nomically advantaged. It is the task of these schools to prepare their students to enter into this monocultural society. One measuring stick of success is their above average ACT and SAT scores. However, the vi alidity of standardized tests have become the subject of nationwide debate. As recently as March 8, 1999, a fede in Philadelphia ruled that the National Collegiate Athletic Association's SAT ACT test score eligibility rule is racially discriminatory I tend to view educational success with JAMIE HACKER Kearns Banning vewan shirt bused on the ac tions of the “hate edge” gany is like ban ning all black clothing in response to the urievoUS Massacre Columbine High School. ‘The majority of vegans are paci fistic. A smaller group of vegans chose to be vegan due to their involvement in Straight Edge, a lifestyle choice (not a ang) condemning drugs and pre-marital practice polygamy which is against the law? Worthwhile Century that kind of mentality, Repressive Ruling at the city, county and state operations of hiring individuals and contractors that a different measuringstick. The reasons | have chosento reside in West Valley City are simple. | want my children to attend culturally diverse schools. | do not want my children lost in white suburbia. I also want them prepared to meet the social Domestic Refugees The United States has undertaken tre mendous humanitarian efforts to rescue the Albanian refugees from their plight Churches, civic organizations, school hildren, and many others are poring out their hearts to the Albanians. The U.S. vovernment is spendingbillions of dol challenges that will certainly be part of their adult lives. Other “west side” parents might mea sure their school’s success by programs such as “Schools to Careers,” which eth powers students with skills that will help their families economically, Many of our students are responsible in caring for younger siblings while parents are work \bortion clinics for human lives, and I wholly condemn the actionsof the hate. edge gang. However, to pigeonhole ev lars from the Social Security trust fund for the ongoing military action, and will be spending billions more for the resto- kids do not have the time or means to hirt into the nrealistic. 1 others in Jor ration of the Kosovo state. In our own country, we have hundreds of thousands of individuals and families travel to Cottonwood High {an e District are doing exactly what they hould avoid: they are singling out stu dents and making them potential targets At the very least, they are angering many teens who value their rights. High school tudent John Ouimette nails the issue with his comment hould have the right to expre arselve Support a little diversity scho ls, Benson, Curtail misunderstandings concerning vegans Don't suspend students for lifestyle choice who need food, a place to stay, and a mean to rebuild their lives just like the Albanians. Except we don't call them refugees, we call them homeless. Why can our country show such humanity to ward foreign refugees and then not show the same compassion and love and sup port for our own? Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem could be solved by referring to them as the American refugees, and some of the tigma will be erased. be on the way Maybe help would ing graveyard and swing shifts. first of their family to earn a high schopl diploma in the United States. Congratulations, Amber, for being rev: ognized as a nal Merit Finalist Granger High School is very proud that four of our juniors have also been honored as National Merit Scholars. It reflects perseverance, dedication and talent skills that are highly valued, in many di mensions, on both sides of State Street, MORGAN AMES Jympus High School Salt Lake City These School. Then there are other “west side” students who donate large amounts of their time help: ing newly arrivingrelatives learn the English language. And let's not forg many of our “west side students are the i CHUCK BU + SUSAN ATKIN TGEREIT Sandy West Valley City POOR C