(no subject)
Email from Richard Turner, the editor/boss of the original reporter (Brooks Barnes). Apparently they will run the correction TOMORROW (June 1).
----------------------------
Dear Mr. Israel,
Thanks for your letter. We take such communication from our readers very seriously, and we plan to publish a correction promptly which would say something along the lines of the following:
Fans of the TV series "Veronica Mars" spent about $1800 to hire a plane to fly over parts of Los Angeles pulling a banner reading "Renew Veronica Mars! CW 2006!" A front-page article on May 14 about fan efforts to save shows from cancellation incorrectly said the group spent $4,000 on the plane and incorrectly implied the banner read "Don't be a dope: Renew Veronica Mars!!!" That slogan was from a banner displayed by a separate fan group.
We regret those errors, and I am particularly sorry that we didn't respond to earlier inquiries about this adequately. It is unacceptable.
As for the location of the fly-over, Ms. Ostroff lives just a couple of blocks from the studio in Burbank, so it's difficult to determine exactly who was being buzzed, whatever the intent. In our earlier responses, we never said that there actually were two planes, but we see how some letter-writers could have drawn that conclusion. I apologize for the confusion.
We pride ourselves on our reputation for accuracy, and for addressing reader complaints swiftly. Sometimes we don't execute as well as we should. This was one such occasion, we appreciate your comprehensive description of the situation, and we will strive to do better.
Sincerely yours,
Richard Turner
Media & Marketing Editor
Wall Street Journal
-----------------------------
My response to this:
Dear Mr. Turner:
Thanks for your quick response. As I said in my note, I have always been reassured that your paper has printed corrections in those situations where I have seen an obvious error. I'm glad to see that policy applied in this case as well.
The correction looks good to me. As a minor note, to avoid recreating the confusion about two planes, it seems worthwhile to note that the "banner displayed by a separate fan group" was not pulled by a plane (I'm assuming it was just hung up somewhere?). Our group takes a lot of pride in the uniqueness of our plane campaign, so that distinction is important to us.
Also, since the $4000 dollar number is out there, it might be good to note that it does have a basis in fact. We have raised that much money (substantially more now), with the vast majority going to our ongoing drive to donate Veronica Mars DVD sets to public libraries across the country. To this point, we have donated more than 175 DVD sets, including 91 sets to 30 library systems in the top 10 Nielsen markets (prior to our efforts, there were less than 20 sets in those systems). This effort has been received enthusiastically by librarians, who have sent emails calling it a "brilliant way to attract new viewers."
Again, thanks so much for your attention to this matter. I agree that the most troublesome part was the lack of response to previous complaints, so I'm very happy that you're taking this step.
Thanks.
Mark Israel