FROM THE NEWSROOM:Editors clean up style, not slurs

Monday was a day for catching up after spending most of last week on spring-break vacation with my wife and kids.

The payback for taking time off is sifting through more than 300 e-mails and about a dozen phone messages. And I had to catch up with the reader comments on our website, a relatively new phenomenon that is growing more popular by the day.

Many of the comments can be biting and mean, as some readers have noted, but many bring up valid points and ideas.

One in particular, however, I remain baffled by. It was written by Costa Mesa Councilman Eric Bever.

Bever complained in a reader comment that an editor improperly edited his commentary piece that ran in the paper right before Easter. The editor changed the words “socialist left” to “socialist left wingers.” One is an ideology, Bever said, and the other a slur.

Here is an excerpt from Bever’s comment:

“Following a lengthy phone conversation regarding the Pilot’s offensive alterations to my commentary, the editor closed by saying: ‘I guess we have to agree to disagree.’ I am flabbergasted that this editor does not understand the importance or value of accuracy in language. That he would insert a slur into a writer’s correspondence is unacceptable.”

So I did some investigation of my own and talked to the editor in question.

Ironically, Bever never called him to complain about the letter (he’s never called or e-mailed me, either).

Instead, the editor Bever was taking to task in his reader comments was calling the councilman to verify information in another writer’s column when they began discussing the “socialist” issue.

For the record, this editor in question is probably one of the fairest, careful, fact checkers I have ever encountered. If he thought he made an error, he would own up to it.

He told me he changed the words “socialist left” to “socialist left wingers” largely to conform with style and grammar rules.

After reading Bever’s original words and the edited words, I have to wonder what he is complaining about.

Here is the original unedited version:

“Look at the staff reports, and note who is pushing these new initiatives: ‘Return to reason’ member, and Katrina Foley supporter, CMPD Lt. Clay Epperson appears to be the primary architect of the clamp-down on our young people. Read his quote in Sunday’s Pilot supporting the curfew. Let’s face it: the socialistic Left wants the government to be bigger and to do everything for everybody. Oddly, there has been little concern voiced regarding this “nanny state” approach.”

Here’s the edited version:

“Return to Reason member and Katrina Foley supporter Police Lt. Clay Epperson appears to be the primary architect of the clamp-down on our young people. Read his quote in Sunday’s Daily Pilot supporting the curfew. Let’s face it: The socialistic left wingers want the government to be bigger and to do everything for everybody.”

The edited version cleaned up the grammatical and style errors in Bever’s commentary and indeed said the same thing in less words. That’s what an editor is supposed to do.

But Bever insisted the editor inserted a slur in his commentary. If that’s true, what context did he mean his original to convey? If referencing the “socialist left” is not a slur, then it must be a positive connotation, right?

I don’t think so.

Any reader of Bever’s commentary would have to agree he was taking a shot at Lt. Epperson and implying the officer is part of the bigger-is-better government crowd. If the original was not a slur, it certainly wasn’t brought up to make Epperson look better.

But I’ll let the readers decide for themselves.

In the meantime, I think Bever owes a few people apologies, one in my newsroom and another at the Police Department.

But judging from his tactics above, I won’t hold my breath waiting for that.