TONY DODERO -- Second Thoughts

at the Daily Pilot, I’m convinced I’m going to become one of the least

popular people in the newsroom.

That said, let me take this moment to compliment the reporters,

photographers and editors for all the hard work they did on our Top 103

most influential people special edition.

It was definitely the best ever.

*

Now for some second guessing.

The biggest controversies to come across my desk this week had to do with

photography. And in particular, images of young children.

The first had to do with our annual back-to-school issue. In that issue,

our photographer managed to bring back some unflattering photos of a

young kindergartner.

When the story and the photos ran, most of us in the newsroom thought

they were cute shots of a young boy nervous on his first day. But his

mother didn’t agree and wasn’t very happy about our choice of photos.

In hindsight, our Director of Photography Marc Martin agreed.

The photographer used a wide angle lens for the assignment and thus the

odd looking images, he said.

“We goofed,” Martin said. “We didn’t show good judgment.”

In the other instance, our photographers returned late one night this

week with a photograph of an accident scene. It wasn’t a particularly

newsworthy event, just a pretty bad fender-bender that jammed up traffic

a bit.

Amid the photos of the crunched cars, we had a photograph of a young

mother, child on her lap, being interviewed by a police officer.

To be fair to our photographer, the mother was well aware that a news

photographer was taking her picture at the time.

By the time she returned home, she started to realize, however, what that

meant. It was then that the newsroom got a phone call from her husband,

asking us to refrain from publishing the shot.

Normally, news folks are grizzled sorts who refuse to let readers dictate

what should or shouldn’t appear in our newspaper. And I can remember a

few obstinate moments I’ve had in the past over just such a debate.

But looking at the photo, it was clear to me that it didn’t have enough

news value to warrant such a standoff.

In a way, that photo highlights a bigger issue for us and that is the

dwindling trust that readers have for members of the media.

Heck, some approval ratings even have us dipping below lawyers, of all

things.

We need to reverse that trend and give the readers more reason to trust

us. Because, after all, they are the reason we exist in the first place.

And to do that, we need to weigh the readers’ concerns with our own need

to publish the news.

*

And of course there is also the issue of accuracy. One reader noted that

we jumbled up the transcribing of her call to our Readers Hotline

regarding the closing of the Cannery restaurant.

And, of course, the reader happened to be Kim Ogle, an English teacher

and fellow of the UCI Writing Project.

I can vouch for the fact that writers are particularly sensitive to how

their words appear in print.

So, as a way to mend that, the following is the correct version of Ogle’s

comments on the Cannery closing:

“I’m so sorry to hear that the Cannery is closing, as it was the site of

my husband’s and my first date. I’ll never forget that moonlit evening.

We were married one year later and we have just celebrated our 16th

wedding anniversary, so it will always remain a special place in our

hearts. It’s so sad that it will be torn down. It would have been

beautiful to turn it into an historical shopping village.”

I couldn’t agree with her more.

* TONY DODERO is the editor of the Daily Pilot. Comments or suggestions

for Second Thoughts can be Mailed: 330 W. Bay St. Costa Mesa, Ca. 92627.

E-mailed: tdnews1@aol.com or dailypilot@earthlink.net. Faxed:

949-646-4170. Phone: 949-574-4258.