Ombudsmania!

(AP)

Today, Public Eye continues its semi-regular look at the issues at play in Print MediaLand -- at least the ones that seem worth passing along. (As sometimes these things get too insider-y even for us.) So keep your hands inside the car at all times, and we're off:

This week's piping hot batch of ombudsman columns – aside from the predictable flagellations over Paris Hilton coverage – dealt with far more serious and weighty topics than they sometimes do. Race, ethics, death and objectivity were among the issues discussed.

When Is A Crime A Hate Crime?

The Chicago Tribune column this week dealt with the aftermath of a major piece from the previous weekend on hate crimes. Hate crimes are a tough nut to crack, as many readers' first instinct is to question the term itself. As Tribune ombudsman Timothy McNulty wrote:

The story raised an important topic worthy of the front page, but it was undercut by its presentation and omissions that include asking but never fully answering the question raised by the large main headline: "What is a hate crime?" Even more, the secondary headline, "Some are asking why no media outcry over murders in which victims were white and defendants are black," simply played into allegations of a media double standard. It needed to say more.

There is a distinction between "hateful" crimes, which could apply to many violent crimes, and a "hate crime," which is a legal term with definition, even if it is controversial and depends on subjective judgments about motivation and thought.

A prosecutor and ultimately a jury decide whether race, religion, ethnicity or other factors qualify a crime as a hate crime, but the article did not go into such specifics. Nor did it mention the consequences of increased penalties.

One of the toughest issues for a local paper to deal with is what to do when Something Big Happens Here. The nation was recently gripped (unnecessarily, IMHO) by the story of Kelsey Smith, the young lady who was abducted from outside an Overland Park mall, just outside of Kansas City. Derek Donovan of the Star heard out the readers while holding down the middle ground:

"You all just lose your mind when it's a pretty white girl who's missing," said another, "But nobody pays any attention when the exact same thing happens every day in this city to other people."

That last point is actually quite a serious overstatement. Even in a metropolitan area with a significant violent crime rate, cases like this are still quite rare.

Still, reader judgments about the amount and appropriateness of coverage are always fair game. It's perfectly valid, though entirely subjective, to argue that The Star overplayed this particular homicide.

The gentleman and scholar David House down at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram also had to deal with a major story in his own backyard – 25-year old Gilberta Estrada's suicide and murder of three of her four children. (The other child, an infant, survived the attempted hanging.) Some Fort Worth readers thought the coverage was naked exploitation of a tragedy, but House saw it otherwise:

The greater story was about a problem even greater than one deeply overwhelmed individual.

As authorities and social workers pointed out in supplementary coverage, Berta Estrada is one tragic example of a shameful problem involving helpless single mothers. Like Berta, they have no money, no transportation or insurance; they have suffered domestic abuse. They might have jobs. Berta's paid about $17,000 a year. They're condemned because they have sex and get pregnant.

In the Washington Post, ombudsman Deborah Howell had to address the criticisms of readers who disagreed with the Post's publication of teacher's salaries in an expose about the D.C. school system. Though it's quite likely that Howell should have recused herself from this case – you'll see why in this excerpt – she defended the article:

But some teachers are upset that their salaries were disclosed; some said the salary figures are wrong. Dan Goldfarb, a teacher at Banneker Academic High School, said publishing the figures is "offensive," invades his privacy and "is totally unnecessary."…

Public employees' salaries are public records. When someone is paid with taxpayers' money, that salary is liable to be made public whether you're the president of the United States or the county dogcatcher. (It's possible I'm inured to this from being married to a longtime educator whose salary was frequently published.)

The Read of the Week

This week's most stirring read, though, was up in Minnesota at the Star-Tribune. The paper's ombudsman Kate Parry took the opportunity of several veteran reporters taking buyouts to discuss the stories they had never been able to shake. Here's just one:

The stereotype of the hard-boiled reporter keeping the world at arm's length doesn't work when the reporter is 26-year veteran Sharon Schmickle, a grandmother, staring down at starving baby girls in a hospital in Afghanistan, their mothers too malnourished to nurse them. "I've seen a lot of grief, suffering and even blood over the years, but looking into those mothers' eyes moved me so deeply I can never forget them," she said.

It turns out the job of impartial observer is really very personal. When most of the journalists who took voluntary buyouts as part of the Star Tribune's downsizing leave Friday, some intense memories and deep bonds to the community at crucial moments go with them.