Attacks make 'I'm sorry' a little easier.

Byline: Jim Godbold / The Register-Guard

JOURNALISTS HAVE ALWAYS had a hard time apologizing, mostly for good reasons. We are more than willing to correct our mistakes and to acknowledge that it is virtually impossible to produce a perfect (as in `error-free') newspaper.

But apologizing in print or in person is another matter entirely. Perhaps we are heeding the advice of British humorist and author P.G. Wodehouse, who said, "It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them."

At a newspaper, that "mean advantage" could have legal ramifications in certain limited instances. Does the apology carry with it an implication of negligence on the part of the paper? Is it an admission of recklessness or disregard of accepted journalistic practices?

More often, though, mea culpas are avoided because, for whatever good will they may engender, issuing official apologies creates a couple of significant problems. First, an apology is a far more visible and higher-level response to an error than a standard correction. An apology carries with it the potential for much greater damage to the newspaper's credibility. The thinking is that if a newspaper is doing a lot of apologizing, it won't be seen by readers as doing a very competent job. Hard to argue with that.

Second, an apology is often sought as a result of something the newspaper published that offended someone. The dilemma is that it's difficult to determine where to set the threshold on the kind of offense that ought to trigger an apology. As the acerbic American author Ambrose Bierce said, "To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense."

Hardly a day goes by without something in some part of the newspaper offending someone. Could be a comic strip, a photograph, an editorial, a news item.

Actually, I think a solid argument can be made that if a newspaper never offends anyone, it's probably not doing a very good job of covering the full spectrum of news and opinion in its community. The journalism that plays the largest role in positive change often emerges from coverage of patently offensive social conditions.

Having said all that, I must confess I'm a believer in the healing power of apologizing. I don't think it would do irreparable harm to the profession if journalists found more opportunities to honestly apologize, and it isn't always necessary for an apology to be published. A little more genuine contrition in our responses to readers who make us aware of mistakes might help to counter our often-deserved reputation for defensiveness.

The events of Sept. 11 seem to have softened the news media to the prospect of saying "we're sorry." Certainly our sensitivity has been heightened to the ways we can inadvertently add to the trauma and suffering caused by the tragedy.

Some examples from the post-Sept. 11 apology archive:

The daily newspapers in St. George, Utah, and Greeley, Colo., apologized last week for publishing an editorial cartoon critical of the U.S. role in the war with Afghanistan. Offended readers in both communities barraged the newspaper offices with complaints demanding to know why the newspapers published the cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Steve Benson. The panel depicts President Bush in a fighter jet, dropping bombs with messages scrawled on them including "killing innocent civilians'' and "starving millions of Afghans.''

New York magazine editor in chief Caroline Miller wrote an apology to readers offended by the magazine's Oct. 29 cover photo. A story on how families were coping with the fallout from Sept. 11 was illustrated with a photo showing a 6-year-old boy holding his drawing of a plane about to smash into the World Trade Center.

"What we didn't notice, although several dozen people here at the magazine saw the picture, is that the tiny stars drawn on the wings of the plane look like Jewish stars," Miller said in a letter being sent to those who called and e-mailed the magazine.

"I deeply regret any misunderstanding generated by these stars, and want to apologize to anyone who was offended by their presence. I want to make it absolutely clear that we at New York magazine had no intention of furthering distortions and lies which help to perpetuate anti-Semitism."

The Oneida, N.Y., Daily Dispatch retracted an editorial that quoted a Pakistani saying Jews were to blame for the terrorist attacks. "We understand that readers of the editorial found it offensive, poorly reasoned and based on flawed facts," the newspaper later said. "We agree."

Mark Sabljak, publisher of the Milwaukee, Wis., Business Journal, wrote a column in the Nov. 2 edition apologizing to readers for a promotional advertisement that included an image of an airplane flying in front of the World Trade Center in New York.

After his remarks prompted widespread criticism, ABC News President David Westin publicly apologized for telling a group of Columbia University students that journalistic impartiality required that he have no opinion on whether the Pentagon was a legitimate target for terrorists. Westin said he misspoke in an effort to make an academic point about the need for journalists to remain neutral.

Jim Godbold is executive editor of The Register-Guard. He can be reached at 338-2413 or by e-mail at [e-mail].