The Editor's Desk

I just read Kirk’s post about how the sports department so easily regrouped last night when Barry Bonds hit his record-breaking home run. They did great work. Home run 756 impacted our front page as well as the sports page. We’d all been on Bonds’ watch for several days, first waiting for him to tie Hank Aaron’s record, then waiting for him to break it. We decided last week that in both cases, we would "skybox" to the news on Page One– that it to say, put a prominent refer above "The Wichita Eagle" flag, promoting our coverage of Bonds’ feat in the sports section. Yesterday, we started the day with two alternate game plans for Page One. Until Bonds broke the record just before 11 p.m., our Page One layout featured no skybox and a 100-degrees weather story at the bottom of the page, beneath our casino vote coverage. Page One designer Lindsey Glasscock was set to regroup if and when she needed to. Quickly, when a collective, "he did it" rang out among those watching TVs in the newsroom, she moved our weather story inside the A-section, designed a nice, but not so deep promo to that at the bottom of the page, creating space at the top for a splashy skybox to sports. Nice work on all counts. The front page looked great, and we made deadline too.

Theresa

In her post below, Sherry commented that I would explain how our new name-verification policy works.

First though, you should know our basic rule about using cq.

Cq is a notation, appearing in nonprinting type, that signifies to editors that an unusual spelling, an address or a phone number has been verified and is correct.

/digression
The origin of cq is disputed, but common arguments include that it comes from the ham radio Call to Quarters (messages for all listeners) or from the Latin phrase cadit quaestio (translated as “the question falls,” it means that a dispute has been resolved). Who knows, but it’s been around for years and is standard practice.
/end digression

Part of our stylebook entry on the topic reads:

The Eagle requires writers and editors to cq these items, following these procedures:

Unusual and variably spelled names. Any name that would be difficult to pronounce must be cq’d (Krzyzewski [cq]). Any name that is a deviation from standard spelling must be cq’d (Saira [cq] Smyth [cq]). Any name that has options (Kelly? Kellie? No, Kellee [cq]) must be cq’d. A cq on a name indicates that the spelling of the name has been explicitly verified with the named person or a reliable third-party source.

Phone numbers. A cq on a telephone number indicates that the number has been called and that the expected party answered. This procedure is required before a phone number may appear in print.

Web address. A cq on a Web address indicates the address has been tried in a Web browser and that the expected Web page appeared. Ideally, use "copy" and "paste" commands to avoid retyping the address and inadvertently introducing an error.

E-mail addresses. When practical, send a polite e-mail to the address and wait for a reply (or at least be certain the post doesn’t bounce back to you) before marking it cq. When that isn’t practical, double check the address with the source from which it was culled before marking it cq.

Our new policy is for the reporter to take an additional stop and write after the cq how they verified the information. For example, if they confirmed it with their source, they would mark it cq-source; if it came from a business card, it would say cq-business card, etc.

The intention behind the new policy is for writers to take the extra moment needed to bring us closer to our goal of an error-free Eagle.

If you see an factual error, don’t hesitate to let me know.

— Michael