Published in the Naperville Sun 06/16/03
First, thank you to everyone who participated in the debut of the Your Turn feature last week. Many of you phoned or e-mailed your opinions about the skate park, and your responses were published Wednesday.
You still have until 5 p.m. Monday to chime in on NCTV's policy regarding controversial programming, specifically whether the community-access station should keep such programming off the air until groups targeted by such programming can produce a rebuttal. Please phone your comments for this week's Your Turn to (630) 416-5241, e-mail them to thesun@scn1.com or fax them to (630) 416-5163.
The Your Turn subject this week is one familiar to journalists — balance.
Wednesday the NCTV board, Sun readers and other residents will share their opinions about how balanced NCTV needs to be. For journalists, there is no debate.
Presenting both sides of the issue is a pillar of newspapering, parallel with accuracy and timeliness. Journalists worth the ink used for their bylines know to seek that balance and to be wary of letting bias creep into their work. Reporters do not have to be unopinionated robots, but good reporters will recognize when strong feelings threaten to affect their writing and they will be diligent in ensuring that does not happen.
Despite that, you likely won't meet a journalist who has never faced an accusation of bias.
The angriest call I've had in my career came at my old paper in central Indiana. I was in charge of editing and designing the sports pages then. A reader called, livid because the name of one high school appeared above another in a list of county football records. His school of choice had the better record, but the list was not meant to rank the teams — it was in alphabetical order.
That did not soothe his anger. I think he is still mad.
At the same paper, there was the tale of an education reporter accused of bias toward a north-side high school over the school on the east side of town.
The reporter's daughter attended the east-side school.
Recently The Sun has faced some charges of slanting. The June 2 coverage of Indian Prairie District 204's high school graduation ceremonies drew the ire of at least one reader, who claimed The Sun "is very biased in many of its reports." And a handful of readers voiced their displeasure with a June 6 story about a Naperville woman who for health reasons terminated a pregnancy through a partial-birth abortion.
Such accusations are frustrating for journalists, but if we are trying so hard to stand straight, why do readers so often think we are leaning?
One reason might be access. If a coach, candidate, city official or public-relations director denies a reporter access or fails to return a call — perhaps because of the "spin" put on the reporter's last article — it can mean a report with a lot of one person's point of view and little of another's. In these cases, first the reporter must go to all reasonable lengths by deadline to get the missing perspective. When that doesn't happen, we must make the editorial decision whether a story can wait. When it cannot, we report that attempts to reach the source failed or calls were not returned.
Another root of the accusations is the angle. Some might say that "angle" and "slant" sound a lot alike, but you could put "angle" right behind "accuracy" and "balance" in the reporter's must-do list. Angle is the direction from which a story is approached, and in The Sun we approach stories from the direction of Naperville.
Partial-birth abortion is timely national issue, and city editor Sara Snyder approached it via the experiences of a local activist with intimate connections to the complicated debate. I have to disagree with complaints that the story was uneven. Once the door of the story was built, it opened to a well-organized, well-balanced report that included comments from a Naperville abortion opponent and the director of the Joliet Diocese Life Office in Romeoville.
The reporting on the District 204 graduation ceremonies for Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley high schools comprised, for each school, a main story on the graduation; a feature on a student or a group of students with a photo; a list of honor students with photos of each; and finally a complete list of all graduates. The difference was we included the main Neuqua story on the cover with a photo.
Neuqua was selected for the cover because editors believed the Naperville school provided the best angle, the best path for our readers into the complete graduation package. The Waubonsie stories were referenced on the cover for those who wished to skip ahead.
Balanced coverage is not a math equation; we cannot approach our stories by counting words or measuring the size of photos to make sure one is not bigger than the other. We can only make the decision we feel is best for our readers today, then strive to walk the tightrope steady as she goes over the weeks, months and years.
I have found so far in my young career that many claims of bias come from passionate people reacting to the opinions of other passionate people. And no one complains that the side they disagree with is underrepresented. Whether the arguments are high school vs. high school, anti-abortion vs. abortion rights, Israel and Palestine or simply liberal media vs. conservative media, often two people can look at the same words and perceive two different biases.
If I sound defensive it is because journalists are so often accused of the very thing they are trying to avoid. But I consider myself pretty passionate — I must heed my own biases and realize that even the most ridiculous allegations of playing favorites serve to keep us on our toes. We know that if we ever let down our guard, you will not.
J.J. Evans is The Naperville Sun's lead copy editor. Contact him with questions, comments or concerns at jevans@scn1.com or (630) 416-5106.
06/16/03
