AFTER DEADLINE

By Saundra Keyes

It's been a dreadful week for The Advertiser's credibility.

On Thursday, we published a major correction of the story that had dominated the cover of Tuesday's Island Life section. That story said a University of Hawai'i freshman's music video was advancing toward the finals of a national competition.

It wasn't.

Today, we are publishing a lengthy correction for a story that ran at the top of last Sunday's front page. That story quoted a former Norwegian Cruise Line employee who told us he resigned from his job over a pay dispute.

He didn't. He was fired.

Tempting though it is to tell you simply that two sources misled us, doing that would duck our responsibility. And in the case of the Norwegian story, we have identified problems that go beyond that employee's misrepresentation.

We know such errors raise questions about our credibility as a news source, and you deserve answers.

How it happened

Here's an explanation of how our mistakes occurred, and more important, of what we're doing to avoid repeats.

In the Island Life story, we reported that you would be able to vote online beginning Wednesday in support of the UH freshman's music video.

When we got a call Wednesday from someone who couldn't find the video on the contest Web site, we checked back with the student. He said he had not intended to deceive us, but had been so sure his video was good enough to advance in the competition that he told us it already had done so.

The resulting correction was an embarrassment to him. And it was a bigger embarrassment to us, because we should have caught the problem before publication.

When the student contacted us, we called Ford Motor Co., the competition's sponsor. A spokesman acknowledged that the student had entered the contest but said finalists' names would not be released until Wednesday.

At that point, we should have held the story.

A matter of verification

Our post-mortem on why we didn't do so comes down to this: The student source, a webmaster at UH's Academy for Creative Media, seemed credible. The program's head spoke enthusiastically about his work. A reporter here looked at the video and found it stunning. Everything seemed to hang together.

"Seemed to," however, offered no comfort when the story's central premise fell apart.

In subsequent meetings, the Island Life staff has talked at length about our verification policies and the need to follow them even when there seems to be no reason to doubt a source.

Today's correction regarding last Sunday's Norwegian Cruise Line story is different, in that it does not negate that story's central focus: the startup pains of shifting to a U.S.-flag operation. But it is distressing not only for errors of fact but also for its acknowledgment that we fell short of our fairness standards.

In reporting the story, we spoke with both present and former employees. Some complained of their pay arrangements and working conditions, while others said they loved their jobs. The story included comments from both groups.

One man who spoke disparagingly of Norwegian said he had quit because of dissatisfaction with pay.

Didn't quit but was fired

After the story appeared, Norwegian officials told us the man had been fired, a fact he confirmed when we called him back.

The Norwegian officials were understandably outraged that we quoted an employee who misrepresented his departure from the company. They had argued against the story's publication, saying they believed the topic wasn't newsworthy and that our reporting was unfair. And they saw our use of an impeached source as proof of both.

We continue to believe the story's subject matter was newsworthy, given widespread public interest in Norwegian's shift to U.S.-flag ships and the resulting job opportunities in Hawai'i. And we are convinced that if we had addressed all the issues raised in today's correction before publication, the story would have retained its central focus and supported its headlines.

The problem is, we didn't address all those issues, which severely compromises the assertion I just made.

Given the complaints Norwegian made during our reporting and editing, we should have caught the ex-employee's firing and taken further steps to ensure fairness throughout the story.

Our post-mortem on this story reached different conclusions than our study of what went wrong with the music video piece.

We went into the Norwegian story with a heightened sense of what it would take to achieve fairness. We're accustomed to news tips that don't pan out. We wanted to satisfy ourselves — and did —that we weren't simply dealing with a few disgruntled workers taking cheap shots.

Focused on major allegation

In retrospect, we've concluded that we focused so intently on the most serious allegation, and on pre-publication complaints by Norwegian, that we overlooked some questions that would have uncovered the quit-versus-fired error.

In our view, the most serious allegation made by some former employees was that the financial arrangements outlined in job offer letters were significantly changed in contracts they were asked to sign after starting work.

We considered it essential to get copies of such documents, show them to Norwegian officials, and get their response.

Our reporter — a journalist committed to high ethical standards — did all those things, and her story included Norwegian's explanation of the documents and the steps the company was taking to avoid confusion about how and when the salaries offered would be paid.

However, we showed Norwegian representatives the documents with employees' names blocked out, something several key editors did not realize until after publication.

Internal miscommunication

Because of Norwegian's pre-publication complaints about the story, more editors than usual were involved in its preparation and review — a frustrating situation for any reporter, and as we have learned, an opportunity for internal miscommunication.

The reporter had appropriately raised the question of whether to furnish names along with the documents. We dropped the ball in editors' communication about the question, with the result that we were operating on different assumptions when we assured ourselves that all information relevant to worker concerns had been shared with Norwegian.

We should have made sure of that, so that company officials could comment on the veracity or specific circumstances of individuals whose concerns we described.

For example, if we had provided the names, we would have known that the source who said he quit had instead been fired.

Providing names also would have led to better handling of other disputed material in the story. For example, Norwegian has challenged the statements of two other employees among the seven current and former workers whom we quoted in the story, all by name.

The two, both of whom quit with complaints about pay arrangements and working conditions, stood by the majority of their comments when re-interviewed regarding Norwegian's challenge.

Norwegian provided a time sheet signed by one of those former employees that contradicted her published statements about her work schedule. The company also provided a payroll roster.

In subsequent interviews, the employee readily agreed that she had signed the time sheet but repeated and elaborated on her assertion that she had worked longer hours than those appearing on the form.

She did agree, however, that a Norwegian document on cabin assignments correctly showed that she had four roommates rather than the five that she had said shared her quarters.

As today's correction states, we regret not having provided Norwegian with her and other employees' names, which would have given company officials a pre-publication opportunity to present information relevant to their claims.

Issues of context

More broadly, Norwegian representatives have charged that their comments were not represented sufficiently or in appropriate context.

After hours of review, we have incorporated some of that concern in today's correction and disagreed with other portions of it. We recognize, however, that what constitutes appropriate context often lies in the eye of the beholder.

With that in mind, we asked Norwegian to participate in a story involving further explanation of how they are addressing the challenges of staffing a U.S.-flag ship, or to write a commentary that would provide company officials' view of the story's context in today's Focus section.

They declined, saying they don't trust The Advertiser to treat them fairly.

Our job is to regain their trust. And if we've lost your trust through our handling of these stories, to get that back as well.

Saundra Keyes is editor of The Honolulu Advertiser. Contact her at 525-8080 or skeyes@honoluluadvertiser.com.