There's nothing like a
little controversy to get your day started right, and controversy is what the
Tribune got Friday morning, after running a front-page profile of Sunshine Lane,
a young woman who splits her time living in South Tahoe and working as a
prostitute in Mound House.
Right off the bat
(the calls started rolling in before 7 a.m.), the subject matter ruffled a lot
of feathers, especially because prostitution is illegal on the California side,
where many of our readers live, and because the paper is accessible to young
people. And to do a profile that does not judge Lane's chosen profession is
risqu� � many of the dozens of callers Friday morning felt the newspaper was
endorsing prostitution by not condemning it.
It's fair for readers to complain when they feel the paper makes an
error in judgment, and letters over the next few days will reflect that. And it
is the obligation of the newspaper, when we receive that type of reaction, to
evaluate whether we made a mistake, and if so, to fess up.
Here's the editor's take on where we went wrong:
Reading the story before publication Friday, we felt readers would
deduce the reporter approached the subject without bias, and offered insight
into a mysterious way of life that exists only a few miles down the hill. In
that way, we felt it was an interesting story.
Fundamentally, though, the biggest thing people objected to was the
placement of the story and photo. "I feel that putting this girl on the front
page promotes a lifestyle that's illegal in California," reader Cathy Martin
said. "I don't think it deserves front-page coverage in a community
paper."
Many of the story's critics, mostly
parents, felt running a profile of a prostitute sends the wrong message to young
people who might pick up the paper.
"It presents
prostitution as a viable (professional) alternative," a reader
said.
Martin and other peeved readers have a
legitimate gripe, although we certainly did not intend for the story to
"promote" prostitution. Besides that, the story just didn't have a news angle
that made it important enough for the front page.
In retrospect, to run it elsewhere in the newspaper may have been
all right with some of those who complained, and it would have been a better use
of "news judgment" to use some restraint, to take a scandalous story off the
front page. Perhaps the story didn't have a place at all in a family newspaper
in a tight-knit community. Our complaining readers had it right, and we had it
wrong, so we deserve to take our lumps and we apologize.
The newspaper industry is funny this way. We can put 100 great front
pages in front of a reader, pages filled with family-oriented stories and
photos, but it takes only one to make the reader develop a grudge, and we did
that to several of you Friday.
As news people,
this is something we will discuss, and as we look back on Friday's paper, we'll
learn more about the balance between providing our readers with content they
want and presenting edgy stories through an unfiltered lens. We want to do both
without compromising our integrity.
Several
readers felt placing a salacious story on the front with a bold picture and
headline ("Young woman in the oldest profession") smacks of trying to sell
papers with the "If it bleeds, it leads" philosophy. In the short term, that can
work, but newspapers like the Tribune need credibility to be successful;
credible is what the Tribune aspires to be. We try to be consistently good in
the community and to the community. That is, after all, how we make a
living.
So, if we had it to do over again, we
wouldn't have run Sunshine Lane on the front page. Maybe our sensibility about
what many of you find acceptable was askew; maybe we got one wrong. But please,
keep in mind those other 99 great front pages. And know we'll always try to do
it better tomorrow.
- Jim Scripps is managing
editor of the Tahoe Daily Tribune. He can be reached at [email protected]
or (530) 542-8047.
