Think being the Public Editor at the Kansas City Star is an easy job? Think again.
Readers of the Kansas City Star seem to scour each page (and the newspaper’s Web site) looking for something to criticize.
A classic example is an issue that the Star’s Derek Donovan had to handle regarding a photo of the British rocker Slash (real name Saul Hudson), who recently performed in Kansas City.
Slash, 47, wore a T-shirt in concert that seemed to feature the famous “F-bomb.” While you can conduct a search to actually determine that it does have the f-bomb on it, it is virtually impossible to determine it in the Star photo (below).
“But it’s still there,” confirmed Donovan on the Star site. “I don’t know if an editor noted it or not, but it would probably have been best to find another image instead for the general audience.
At times we get tired of people picking on the Star and Donovan having to answer silly inquiries.
As an example, just because a headline should say “rein” instead of “reign” we aren’t going to make a big thing of it…
Slash’s f-bomb shirt.
FOCUS ON LOW-HANGING FRUIT
You know, I’d really like to see The Star break out of the rut it seems to be stuck in by covering more of the events and activities in the greater Kansas City area that are “off the beaten path,” so to speak. The Chiefs, the Royals, concerts at the Sprint Center starring people who are always trying to make a statement about something (F-bomb or no F-bomb), that’s the “low-hanging fruit” in this business. Try something else for a change. Dig a little deeper.
Yes, a different picture of Slash was very much in order here since the paper wishes to be viewed as a family-friendly entity (remember, The Star has said “no” to the word “Redskins” in the sports section). Hey, next time they just ought to take a picture of Slash’s rear since he’s apparently something of an ass.
SLASH A BRITISH ROCKER?
In scouring pages to find errors so that I can comment and look smarter than the writer, I see that you refer to Slash as a British rocker, but when did being from California make you British?
Well, he was born in Britain and is considered a “British-American Musician.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_(musician)
PROUD DUAL CITIZEN
At bottom of the Wikipedia article is this line:
Slash, the son of a white English father and a black American mother, has called himself a “proud” dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States.[11] A British national since his London birth,[6] he has resided in Los Angeles since 1971 but did not acquire American citizenship until 1996.
FEMALE GENITALIA
While taking a deposition in Europe I used the word slash referring to the symbol below the Question Mark on the QWERTY keyboard. I was told by the English court reporter that she preferred that I might find another word to use to refer to the symbol because in Jolly Old the word Slash in English slang refers to female genitalia. So perhaps a reference to the f-bomb may not have been the entire extent of the vulgarity.
WHEN IN DOUBT LEAVE IT OUT
Then again, The Star’s decisions on what and what not to cover may well be driven at least in part by who’s doing the advertising with them. Case in point, in the early days of The New York Daily News, would-be advertisers were requesting some favorable publicity to go along with their ads. Thus a reader was likely to see certain stories in The News that otherwise probably shouldn’t have been there, all things considered.
Back to the picture. Either the paper’s photographer didn’t notice the F-bomb on the shirt or did and just didn’t care. A good philosophy to follow is this: when in doubt leave it out.
F-BOMB CONTROVERSY
Gee Derek, I had no idea that my pointing out the F-Bomb would generate such controversy. I noticed it the moment I saw the photo; but, I did need to use a magnifying glass to confirm that was what I was seeing. I really thought it was quite hilarious that no one noticed before it went to print (or even after – lol) Seems like more readers are concerned with his lineage.