The readers have spoken
If readers were editors of the Toronto Star, by a wide margin you would have nixed that Stargazing nastiness of making fun of a young gaptoothed girl photographed with actor Brie Larson.
In fact, 80 per cent of readers who responded to my 12th annual, “You be the Editor” holiday quiz that asks readers to weigh in on which of the questionable words and images published in the Star you would publish, said no to publishing that Stargazing blurb. It was the second largest percentage of “No” answers in the 16question feature.
And, to be clear, those in the newsroom who were involved in publishing the ill-advised photo caption — that said, “Brie Larson poses for a photograph in London and uses a cool app to show the fan what she will look like when she gets those teeth fixed” — agree those mocking words should never have made it into the Star.
Readers also made clear their strong distaste for a columnist’s reference to Toronto Maple Leaf forward Auston Matthews as “the Leaf stud” and the conclusion of that column stating, “Suck it, Auston.” Overall, 72 per cent of the several thousand readers who weighed in with their editorial judgments on whether to publish or not publish opted for a no-publish call on that one.
Once again, my sincere thank you to every reader who took time over the holiday period to consider the words and images presented in my You be the Editor feature.
As always, all the questions were based on concerns expressed by some readers to the public editor’s office in 2019. These matters are representative of the many thousands of reader questions the public editor’s office fields each year about accuracy, fairness, ethics, taste, editorial style and language usage in the Star.
Of course, not all reader complaints about what is published are ultimately deemed to be sound. Fact is, some are neither reasonable or rational. But most all are given fair consideration with the matter judged against the Star’s journalistic and style standards. It is worth remembering too that journalists themselves don’t always agree on the many journalistic judgments made daily. This quiz is intended to be a wee peak into the kind of discussions that take place constantly in the newsroom.
Overall, results indicate that readers were aligned with newsroom judgments about what to publish in eight of the 16 scenarios presented — 50 per cent of the time. I agreed with readers in all the cases where they opted for a no-publish judgment, and, most of those where they opted to publish.
The closest call was not surprising, given that the question of “unpublishing” news reports of those charged by police with crimes that are subsequently withdrawn by courts is an ongoing source of discussion within Torstar newsrooms and the news media overall. Readers were almost evenly split on whether to remove (what we refer to as “unpublishing”) the name of a medical technician charged with sexual assault following an incident at a Toronto hospital.
Shortly after the news report of the charges was published, the charges were withdrawn, and the hospital determined no wrongdoing. Overall, 50.03 per cent would have agreed to a request from the man’s lawyer to remove his name from the original news report found easily by googling the man’s name. But, 49.97 of you opted not to unpublish this, in line with the Star’s policy to update such articles with the outcome of the charges but not to remove information from the public publishing record.
The other matter that so evenly split readers was the question of whether the Star should publish a column about women and oral sex that was first published in The Kit, Torstar’s fashion and beauty publication. In all, 50.69 readers nixed publishing the column that offered explicit and graphic guidance for women on how to enjoy oral sex. But, 49.31 per cent of readers were just fine with publishing that column — clearly, those were not among the many readers who had complained about the column’s publication in the Star.
Again, thank you for participating in this feature though these past 12 years. I hope you have found it to be both fun and somewhat illuminating of some of the complexity of journalistic decision-making.
You can see the full results of the 2019 You be the Editor quiz and my judgment calls on the fuller version published on thestar.com.