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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, July 28, 2002

AFTER DEADLINE
Candidate complains of unfair coverage

By Anne Harpham

D.G. "Andy" Anderson, a Democratic candidate for governor, complained that our front-page coverage of Linda Lingle's 28-page blueprint for what she planned to do as governor amounted to an endorsement of her candidacy.

He also balked at the characterization of Lingle's plan as the most comprehensive presented by a candidate so far.

Anderson pointed out that he has released detailed proposals on a variety of subjects from gas prices to education and that his plans didn't receive the same coverage as Lingle's did.

The Advertiser hasn't endorsed anyone and nobody is getting special treatment. Capitol Bureau Chief Kevin Dayton, who is covering the campaign, responded that Lingle's plan is indeed the most detailed and touches on a broader range of issues than Anderson and the other candidates have yet addressed.

The primary is still two months off and we have a lot of political ground to cover. Before the primary, we are planning a series of stories that will go into great detail not only about the backgrounds of the candidates but about their ideas on everything from public education to tax policy to the tourism industry.

• • •

It is expected that reporters will try to get comments from all the parties in court cases. Sometimes, it takes a lot of effort to track down the people involved and a lot of the time they don't want to talk to us. Most of the time they leave the talking to their lawyers.

Experienced reporters know that in almost all cases, we need to go to a defendant's lawyer to get comment. Defendants usually don't want to talk, but we should never assume they don't.

Last week, a jury on Maui awarded a woman $864,500 in damages from Dr. Larry Schlesinger, who was accused of performing her breast augmentation surgery incorrectly.

Reporter Timothy Hurley called Schlesinger's attorney, George Playdon, but only reached his voice mail. He decided to call back to try to reach Playdon's secretary. She wasn't available and Hurley left a message on her voice mail. He didn't get a call back by the time he sent in his story, so there was no comment from Schlesinger's side.

It turned out that Schlesinger was willing to talk and wanted to make the point that he was appealing the verdict because he felt the evidence showed he did nothing wrong. We ran a follow-up story in Tuesday afternoon's edition and on Wednesday morning.

Hurley, a veteran reporter in our Maui bureau, said he assumed that the doctor would refer us to his lawyer, so he figured he would simply call Playdon first. It was a potent reminder of what happens when we make assumptions. Hurley felt bad about it and I'm sure it won't happen again.

• • •

The folks in the downtown law office of T.J. Lane probably have a pretty fair idea of the demand for tickets to the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Wednesday.

In the TGIF section Friday, we published the phone number for the law office instead of the Blaisdell Arena box office. (The difference is only one digit.)

The reporter typed in the phone number with a digit missing. His editor saw the error, but she typed in the wrong digit. Our policy is to always call a number to confirm it, but in this case, neither the reporter nor the editor did.

The unhappy calls from readers, and from the law office, demonstrate why we have such a policy in place.

Senior editor Anne Harpham is the reader representative. Reach her at aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8033.