A great catch from an emailer this morning:
As I was reading today's letters to the editor, one seemed very familiar. I knew I had read the same message but didn't know if it had been written by the same individual until I pulled yesterday's Business Section out of the recycle bin and found the exact same letter complete with the same headline. If The Star gets so many letters, why is it publishing one of those letters twice?
Today's front-page story on Rush Limbaugh's induction into the Hall of Famous Missourians has been the No. 1 topic on my callers' and emailers' minds this morning. And of course that doesn't surprise me.
Some have found the story balanced overall. One emailer called it "pretty good this morning, and fairly balanced, especially for the Star. ;o)"
In my column this week, I wrote about some recent notes I've gotten from readers about language usage in The Star. Whenever I do that, I tend to hear from other readers with their own beefs.
These types of calls and notes are actually some of the most common things I hear, I rarely write about them -- much to the frustration of the concerned grammarians.
UPDATE: I got confirmation that anyone who cast paid vote will get refunds as well.
There's no question that newspaper companies are in the business of making money. That they're independent enterprises is fundamental to their constitutional role, in fact. But readers often contact me when they think the commerce side gets in the way of conveying information to the public appropriately.
I'm always chagrined when I hear a rather common assertion, articulated by a caller just now: "I know The Star doesn't fact check the letters to the editor it publishes..."
I worked on the letters page for many years, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that nothing could be further from the truth. But at the same time, it's also obvious to anyone who watches the corrections in the paper that the letters page generates far more than its fair share of errors.
UPDATE: A Star staffer who used to work at the paper this originally came from positively IDs it for me. It's from the old Dispatch-Tribune newspaper in the Northland, not The Star. It's still amusing.
It's been a slow news day, so it's time for a bit of levity. I stumbled across this old headline from The Star's past -- something that a newsroom staffer had saved for obvious reasons.
A caller today pointed me to a story about Missouri lawmakers who are considering new funding methods for state college campuses' construction and capital improvements. I'll let her own words speak for themselves:
I think most of the folks who contact me are primarily concerned with hard news coverage. That's great, obviously, but I think many of us forget that people look to general-interest media companies like The Star for a lot more than just the news. Entertainment and sports are primary motivators for a lot of readers, too, and this emailer made a novel point that makes a lot of sense to me:
I’ve noticed something over the past couple of years that has finally gotten on my nerves: Weekly coverage of American Idol (and Dancing with the Stars) on the homepage of the kansascity.com.
I had an interesting discussion with a reader this afternoon about Sunday's front-page centerpiece on Kansas City Mayor Sly James' first year in office. Specifically, this reader wanted to talk about something several others have brought up with me: How tenacious should journalists be in reporting on his son and brother's scuffles with the law?
A reader reminds me that residents of Kansas City, Kan. often feel overlooked in news coverage. Sometimes they tell me the good news isn't reported -- but they also want to know the negative side and its impact on public safety. In part:
"The were two homicides in two days in KCK this weekend. ... Can The Star report on the total number of killings in KCK in 2012 so far compared to the same period in 2011? If homicide stories are important in KCMO and Olathe, it would be good to have some kind of information about what's happening in KCK, too."
