Report to Readers by Susan LoTempio

Help us to help you

Received a call today from a local businessman who claimed we made a mistake when mentioning a  business - a local sleep center - in the Saturday story titled "Everyone cashing in on Sabres."

The Page 1 article by reporter Sharon Linstedt, explained the problem of copyright infringement when it comes to unauthorized sale of merchandise and services ranging from women's thong underwear featuring the likeness of Rick Jeanneret, to a billboard reading: "One Team. One Goal. No more sleepless nights."

The caller said the billboard was not connected to his business and demanded "a retraction." However, the specific name of the business was not mentioned in the story, and the Sabres would not release that information.

I'd like to discuss his complaint further, but he left neither his name nor his phone number.

Hint to anyone who feels they've been wronged in a story that appears in The News: if you send us an e-mail us or leave a voice-mail message, please tell us who you are and how to contact you. If we don't know those things, we can't act on your complaint.

Same goes for any other contact with the newspaper, whether it's a press release for a local entertainment event or a letter to the editor: if it's anonymous, it doesn't hold much weight.

Those pesky mistakes

You'll often find a box at the bottom of Page A2 in the print edition of The News called Corrections or Clarifications.

That's the place where we admit we aren't perfect; that we made a mistake in a story, column or  headline. That we are, after all, only human. Just like our readers.

A correction in Thursday's newspaper (you can find it on Buffalonews.com by typing Corrections in the Search box) is an interesting case in point. Two mistakes were made in a short brief that was part of the Local News Briefs column published earlier in the week. But the mistakes weren't made by an editor or reporter. The mistakes were contained in the press release sent to The News.

In a perfect world, reporters would double-check every single fact they include in a story - even a brief - but that's virtually impossible. We rely on credible organizations to provide correct facts - especially when it comes to something as basic as the location of an event. If something looks a bit off in a press release, reporters will pick up the phone to check on it.

Incorrect information from a press release is embarrassing enough. More so are the mistakes we make all on our own. The rule in this newsroom is that once we learn a mistake has been made, we correct it in the next day's paper, or as soon as we've gathered the correct facts. We want our readers to know that we take mistakes seriously.

We're often asked why Corrections and Clarifications are on Page A2 and not on the page where the story initially ran. For example, if the mistake is in a front-page story, why shouldn't the correction appear on the front page.

We look at it this way: All mistakes are bad, no matter where they appear, and if we anchor our Corrections box on Page A2 every day, readers will easily find it.

What would make all of us happy would be to eliminate mistakes altogether, and human though we may be, that's our goal.