I thought you might be curious to know why we had only a very brief item on the death of Steve Irwin ("The Crocodile Hunter") inside Monday’s paper, but then featured the story on the cover today.
It all comes down to timing. Because the Labor Day edition is one of the biggest weekday papers we do all year, we closed out the paper earlier than usual Sunday night. News of Irwin’s death came after that, around midnight, just as the presses were beginning to run. Information was very scarce, and we had only enough to compile what we call a "brief" — just a couple of paragraphs of information — and not enough for a full story. We made the quickest possible substitution, putting that brief in an existing briefs column on Page 14A. The new page was sent to the pressroom, and the presses had to be stopped to put it on.
From time to time, you may notice a small star at the top of certain pages, near the page number and date. That star indicates the page was substituted during the press run, usually either to correct a mistake or to get in late news. If your paper on Monday had the Irwin brief on Page 14A, that page carried such a star. Because we were able to sub in that brief quickly, most readers’ papers carried the updated page.
We were sorry, though, not to be able to offer readers a fuller story. So we went to work on that the next day, using information from the Associated Press and our own reporting at the Sedgwick County Zoo. That story is on today’s Page 1A.
A reader asked about our Saturday story about the Rev. Terry Fox and why we allowed two deacons to speak anonymously about Fox’s departure from Immanuel Baptist Church. Since his unexpected resignation from the church just a few weeks ago, we have
received many emails and calls providing unsubstantiated rumors and
also raising questions about what led to his resignation. Our religion reporter,
Joe Rodriguez, set out to clear up rumors and provide readers and
Immanuel’s parishioners with a more complete story. This was a
difficult task because the church’s leadership was so reluctant to
comment. The first deacon Joe spoke to provided information that we felt
was important in clarifying the reasons for Fox’s departure, and also
dispelling some of the rumors that had arisen. The deacon was not willing to
have his name published, so I instructed Joe that if he could find
another deacon who would confirm specific information that this deacon
had provided, we would run that information without naming the deacons. They provided information that made it
clear that the issues raised had been presented to and discussed by all the church’s
deacons. I felt the need to clarify these issues overrode any
reluctance we might have had about using unnamed sources.
I would not have been comfortable quoting parisioners or others
without specific knowledge of the deacons’ decision process on this.
These gentlemen were credible sources because of their role as deacons and decision-makers at the church, and we insisted to them that in our story we did need to reveal the
fact that they are deacons. Terry Fox has become a very public figure
in Wichita, and concerns and curiosity about this situation were high as
we charted our coverage on this. It was also key to allow Fox a forum
to respond, and he was willing to be interviewed for this story.
I appreciate this reader’s interest and the thought-provoking question. Theresa Johnson, Managing editor