When reader calls, we want to provide helpful answer
By John E. Simonds
The Advertiser's reader representative
Got questions? Call 525-8033. Complaints, comments, requests for corrections, think something's missing from your paper? Call the same number.
Even if you get our voice mail, please leave a name and phone number.
We check the messages weekends, nights, before dawn, so we'll get back to you. You won't hear the customary line about how important your call is.
That's a given.
Getting a helpful answer is the really important part.
We'll be glad to take your calls — misspelled name, wrong date for a big event, can't find that hole-in-one listed in the sports pages.
This past week, The Advertiser launched an expanded "Getting It Straight" corner of Page A4, listing names and phone numbers of the newspaper's key executives. If you're still not sure which one to phone after browsing there, call 525-8033 for help.
The Advertiser began its reader representative role in October 1999, resuming a function that had been vacant since the death of ombudsman Charles A. Ware in 1986. Chuck Ware, a former mid-level editor at The Advertiser, had been ombudsman since 1974.
The Honolulu Advertiser is one of about 40 news organizations in this country that have reader representatives, reader advocates, public editors or ombudsmen — as they are titled at various places. Most of us belong to the Organization of News Ombudsmen, a global group of about 80 members who stay in touch via e-mail.
Our job descriptions may differ, but serving the reader is a mission in common that doesn't have to be about an error or an issue. Maybe you want to know how editors decide where to place stories, which pictures to use, how big to make them, and who does the captions. Or, you may want to ask who writes the editorials. Who picks the comics? Where does the weather come from? Do families have to pay for obituaries? Where are the answers to Sunday's Jumble? Why is the morning paper still called the Final Edition when another one (the new PM edition) comes out later?
How do you get a bride or baby pictured in 'Ohana?
In recent weeks, people have called to ask about the state's hurricane insurance fund and why the public can't get its money back. What about the impact of a looming school strike on military families preparing to transfer?
Why is The Advertiser so tough on fireworks, when more people are killed by cars? Where is a list of local radio stations and what they play? (Answer: Friday's TGIF.) What's this PM Advertiser doing in my garage? Or, how come the neighbors got a PM Advertiser and we didn't?
Readers call about big issues such as strikes and taxes, submarines, the census and fluoridation, and smaller ones such as the differences between sonar and radar, soldiers and Marines, bacterial and viral, Scotch and Scottish, and the correct use of the term "lion's share." (According to Webster and Oxford, it's the largest portion. A couple of callers were sure it was 100 percent, no doubt the lion's intent but not the definition.)
It is a goal we strive for each day in seeking total precision in Honolulu's newspaper jungle.
News gathering is less than a perfect process. The Advertiser newsroom is a busy place. It may take a reader's question to alert editors that something's wrong, missing or needs more attention. The Advertiser welcomes your input.
Call 525-8033 — or e-mail jsimonds@honolulu.gannett.com — any time of day.
