House, hunting

Tell us more ...

        Interesting surprise in today’s Star-Telegram –- a laudable and long overdue response (a half-page, color doubletruck on 12A and 13A) to the widespread misperception and speculation out there regarding the daily’s financial health and impending fate.

        The house ad, signed by Publisher Gary Wortel who’s looking down-home comfortable without a tie and posed on a stool, takes on “half-truths and undocumented claims (that) have been circulating about our industry … we want you to know the real story.”

        The ad meets that aim but in polite capsules that provide a few key statistics about readership, reach, ad impact and some other data that point to a newspaper that’s robust and powerful, not breathing its last breath by any means, as so many rumors claim.

        But the best thing about the ad –- and why I rejoiced when I saw it –- is simply that the ad’s there and the Star-Telegram’s fighting back. The entire newspaper industry needs to follow the Star-Telegram’s lead in that respect. I’ve lamented for years the industry’s failure to use its resources (like the S-T’s house ad) to counter the dreadful effects of talkshow attacks, the credibility meltdown and other challenges. In the midst of such deadly pounding, the news industry has seemed to yawn while airing its dirty laundry as a sign of righteousness and honesty, stopping short, however, of pouring the power of its purpose, practices and justifications into the public mind. At least the S-T’s ad was aimed in that direction.

        I hope the S-T’s Sunday house ad is the first in a weekly series that will offer more detailed looks at the topics it tackled. Summarized in breakout heads, the topics were: Market’s major information source; Best local reach of any media; Multimedia company with diverse product mix; Multi-platform delivery of information; Enduring community commitment.

        Each topic was dealt with but in generalizations sprinkled with some stats, which certainly were welcome but far from satisfying. Made me want to know more, and I hope many other readers’ reaction was similar.

        So tell us more, Star-Telegram. Help us appreciate you, help us understand journalism and your professional journalists who carry heavy loads to make it happen. Show us stuff like your staff and commitment and how they’re driving the S-T in its mission to earn the people’s trust daily and why that’s urgently needed. Don’t hold back. Give us more fight. And more ammo against misperceptions.

        And if anyone's reading this, please weigh in. What's your perception of the state of the S-T? What more would you like to know about its operations? What would you like to hear from and about the staffers who work hard to give this six-county area a respectable, credible daily newspaper?

  

Happy New Year 5770

Wishing you the best. And plenty of honey and apples for a sweet year.

Thanks, AP, for truth, not coddling

         Reaction to news of the death of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard in Afghanistan surely was received nationwide with varying degrees of sympathy and, in some cases, no sympathy at all because it meant nothing to some people who have become completely desensitized to news of death in war. Another Marine lost. Another name published.

        But this time there was a twist. An AP photographer photographed a mortally wounded Lance Cpl. Bernard hours before he died. The AP distributed that image, and controversy erupted over exposing the public and Bernard’s family to such horrific content.

        You be the editor. Would you have published that picture? Why?

        A number of U.S. newspapers opted not to publish the photo, finding it too troubling for their general readership. Some, like the St. Petersburg Times, found a compromise and published the image online. Some, like the Wheeling, W.Va., News-Register printed the picture because, they said in an editorial, “we owe it to our readers to report the full truth about the war, even if that means publishing unpleasant photographs.” I side with Wheeling and the AP. I want truth, not coddling.

        In Wheeling’s view, they had compelling reason to publish the photo. That has been the reason behind publication of gruesome battle pictures in the past. Ever studied those Civil War battlefield photos? How about: the photo from Vietnam of an officer executing, at point-blank range, an enemy kneeling on a street; bodies of Americans being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu; burned and brutalized bodies of Americans hanging from a bridge in Iraq.

        Sometimes, a jarring dose of reality is the only context that can penetrate Americans’ layers of comfort and secularized pursuits and the Cretan level of political debate that infests the land these days. Sometimes, only a jarring dose of reality can clear hearts and minds. Particularly if we are ever again to have a realistic grasp of what a “hero” label really is and how it's earned.

        With all due respect to and prayers for his family, Lance Cpl. Bernard is one of many tens of thousands of American heroes who have died in battle, paying the ultimate price as part of America's armed forces. And, thanks to brave photojournalists (dare we call them heroes?) there are plenty of pictures of our forces fighting --- and their fallen bodies on the Atlantic and Pacific beaches and on the fields of Europe, Vietnam, Asia and elsewhere. Should those photographs be censored because they're troubling? Never made public? Should American children never see such a sight and focus instead on iPods and soccer fields? Ridiculous idea? What do you think?

P.S. There are online guestbooks for Lance Cpl. Bernard. Here’s one.