Better Than Deep Throat
Better Than Deep Throat by Arthur Levine There are more than 350 “Action Line” columns in newspapers across the country, holding themselves out to millions of readers as champions of the...
...If he didn’t respond, Blakely vowed to run his name every day in the paper until he changed his mind, coupled with daily telegrams to then-Governor Rockefeller...
...On a broken street light: “Pepco checked the light at night and found it functioning and the circuitry OK...
...Moreover, Action Lines shouldn’t be just the province of the less prestigious papers, seen as mere filler for the working classes, but, rather, as an opportunity to shine for the under-used talent of the metro staffs of papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, which now devoty their time to events like shopping center openings...
...Of course, virtually every Action Line editor I spoke to was able to point to a few investigative series stemming from Action Line problemssubjects like pyramid sales, shoddy mobile homes, and sales frauds...
...Near his desk there’s a pile of corporate and government responses to the Evening Sun’s routine inquiries...
...Arthur Levine is an editor of The Washington Monthly...
...Action Lines provide a ready outlet for those with vindictive tendencies...
...We’re proudest of the way we’re helping little people, the poor, the blacks, people who don’t speak well or write well,’’ he notes...
...Coming in each day are a tremendous volume and range of complaints that should give any alert news editor a sense of what’s wrong in his community...
...The columns can be attuned to citizen needs in a way that no other institution can...
...One way to illustrate this problem is to consider how it affects even the best of the largevolume Action Lines, that of the Detroit Free Press...
...Louis Globe-Democrat, one of 14 papers which closed down Action Lines by 1972...
...We are more sensitive about advertisers, because they put food in our mouths and money in our pockets...
...At the Evening Sun in Baltimore, there’s a sense of dreary routine in the office of Direct Line editor David Woods...
...Overly concerned about “reader interest,” the columns print a surfeit of light, fluffy items to the exclusion of the “duller” items which may be of more genuine concern to the readers...
...Backed up by five researchers and two secretaries, he wields a good deal of power through his front-page column...
...The letters bear him out about the kind of people who seek help from Direct Linemany notes are scrawled and ungrammaticalbut they hardly support his contention that Direct Line is helping everyone...
...They shouldn’t be devoting their time to question’s on how to get chewing gum out of a blue serge suit...
...A reasonable first step is to refer the complaint to the target with a covering letter asking for an explanation, noting that the answer might be published...
...They will not be followed up, except for a few of the publishable items, because of time and staff limitations...
...Rarely do they stop to think that Action Lines might be better than Deep Throat...
...He admits, though, “We are quicker to use the name if it’s complimentary...
...Why...
...The major excuse given for almost any flaw in an Action Line is the staggering volume of complaints, which requires some sort of selection process-which is, in fact, a serious problem...
...At an adjoining desk, a secretary wearing earphones types up the litany of troubles coming off the tape recorder...
...They usually get some kind of response-the Evening Sun claims a 70 per cent “effective response rate...
...For example there was a lengthy letter from a disabled 56-year-old construction worker asking for a Social Security hearing on a rejected claim...
...Yes, these are real requests...
...Surdus Dirt One of the columns’ great potentials is as a source for investigative stories and continuing information about community institutions...
...Better Than Deep Throat by Arthur Levine There are more than 350 “Action Line” columns in newspapers across the country, holding themselves out to millions of readers as champions of the little guy...
...We get a complaint put at the top of the pile, although.it probably would have been taken care of anyway...
...Jim Blakely comments, “You can’t work with dummies, it’s not a place for deadwood...
...The columns also provide spinoffs for human-interest stories...
...But the Chicago Tribune’s Kenan Heise, whose column does print names, criticizes the no-name approach: “You totally lose credibility...
...One of the best Action Line editors, Kenan Heise, admits, “We do work with the city desk, but not as much as I’d like...
...A recent academic study under the direction of Berkeley anthropologist Laura Nader indicated that over half the columns don’t try to solve problems unlikely to be published...
...This distorted emphasis is revealed in trade publications like Editor and Publisher in which articles on Action Lines reveal the cases the papers are proudest of...
...Our records do not show the result of the hearings...
...There’s no consistency, it’s all done on an ad-hoc basis...
...A few cases are put aside to be handled by phone, but most are routinely mailed out to the offending businesses...
...Any column that does that is more or less just a filler...
...Even the most cowardly Action Line will run the name if the company is declared bankrupt or is formally indicted for fraud...
...Many papers contain a disclaimer similar to this one printed in The Philadelphia Znquirer: “Action Line editors consider every request you send us...
...Blakely remembers one Albany official who simply refused to send out state college scholarship money due Rochester residents...
...An example of the Star column’s lack of clout came in the section entitled “Reaction Line,” in which the paper admitted that a store didn’t follow through on a previous promise to Action Line...
...He adds, “These papers are more cynical than the companies we deal with...
...In this case, the Bureau cooperated with the column, and Blakely took to printing the names of businesses that didn’t satisfactorily reply to Bureau inquiries within 30 days...
...They can aid law-enforcement and other agencies in monitoring problem areas (some already do) and serve as a resource for legislators seeking to shape new laws...
...They became cooperative...
...The Evening Sun’s readers might have a few more questions about this c orres p ondence: What depart men t store takes from July to February (when the column appeared) to acknowledge the complaint...
...They are hampered by a reluctance to name names or to pursue undramatic complaints, the staffers often acting like clerks rather than newsmen...
...Action Lines that take this approach are the journalistic equivalent of the Better Business Bureau...
...Moreover, as Kenan Heise of the Chicago Tribune says, “The phone calls are usually inaccurate and provide insufficient information...
...All of them wish they had their own Ideal Source, like Woodward and Bernstein’s “Deep Throat...
...Too often, though, the daily tide of queries makes it difficult to stand back and examine long-range trends...
...The willingness to print names was the key to its success...
...1, I wrote a letter to Congresswoman Mrs...
...One column discussed calling a credit card company and drawing “a blanche,” while another handled a magazine complaint by calling “the famed men’s magazine and talking to a bunny there.’’ It would be naive to say that the editors have no reason for concern...
...Such an analysis might provide newspapers with a more sensitive sort of feedback than any public agency gets-might make them the “fourth branch of government” in a far more meaningful way than is now the case...
...A persistent Action Line column can have a dramatic impact on services in an area...
...It’s clear that the press-through the default of others-has some serious responsibilities to fulfill...
...Most other questions are either light or “informative,” because, as an internal memo said, “You can only conquer Social Security so many times...
...Action Line staff posts are often viewed as deadends...
...Newspapers might learn these lessons from a few broadcasting stations around the country that are handling consumer complaints...
...Action in Rochester To understand what kind of clout these papers are deliberately foresaking, we need only to look at the aggressive policies of an Action Line on a Rochester newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle...
...These papers are all too eager to take the institution’s word at face value, and to slough off the complaints that can’t be easily answered...
...Beal found ten papers that named only out-of-town or out-of-state firms...
...At these afternoon papers, the almighty Action Line consists basically of an editor plus clerical help who work from recorded telephone calls and letters...
...I’ve tried to resolve the matter both by telephone and by letter but without success...
...3, 1974...
...Woods defends the no-name policy...
...By stressing only the most obvious complaints and odd-ball questions, they, in effect, discourage their readers from sending in information on the more sacrosanct institutions, such as the schools or hospitals...
...Woods then turns to his typewriter with an air of efficient boredom...
...This device, which nearly one third of the Action Line papers now use, is an utter fraud, since it generates such a volume of complaints that all attempts to select the most serious cases are overwhelmed...
...But as long as they stick to finding llama-skin coats or saving only the most colorful victims, they will be a long way off from becoming true Action Lines...
...The two Baltimore papers merely forward their readers’ complaints to the agency or business in question and ask the accused to respond...
...But until the millenium comes, we’ll have to settle for Action Lines...
...later he got an assistant...
...One way to get results, he found, was to repeatedly publish the names of companies and agencies that received complaints-until they became more responsive...
...The businessman can bilk his customer, the public official can ignore a case, and both of them know that no one will ever point the finger...
...Jon Stewart observes, “When they write us and say it’s being taken care of, we have to assume it’s been done...
...As the outlet for a wide range of citizen complaints, Action Lines could be a most valuable national storehouse of information...
...Time after time, a reader has to make guesses about an item like this: “Last July, I purchased a bean-bag chair from a Washington department store for delivery to my son in Baltimore...
...One of the most maddening features of the modern world is the facelessness of the large institutions, and their consequent lack of accountability...
...To be sure, there is already some contact between the Action Lines and the news desks, but with few exceptions it consists of an exchange of “tips” and rumors of scandal...
...But the potential abuses underscore the need for newspapers to use their power wisely and responsibly, and for them to understand that Action Lines are more than cute features to boost circulation...
...H., but Direct Line is unlikely to follow the case up...
...The column has the nerve to bill itself as a “reader service cutting through red tape to get your answer...
...This willingness to name names also enabled the column to put heat on slow-moving government bureaucrats...
...Right down the hall from the typical Action Line office, of course, you can usually find the beat reporters sitting around the newsroom moaning about the lack of story ideas and the drudgery of covering official statements...
...The editors are right in feeling they must be selective...
...When the St...
...It allows a reporter to use his skills in a way that directly helps people...
...The other factor in the distance between the Action Line office and the city desk is the second-rate status assigned to Action Line staffers...
...People are really stupid...
...The Action Line offices are filled with specific cases on every institution in the communi t y- schools, hospitals, welfare de - partments, the police, fire companies, insurance firms, doctors, lawyers, courts and so on-but only a fraction of that information is being used...
...Still, editors feel a compelling need to find a bedsheet bearing a picture of linebacker Dick Butkus or a salon that buys fingernails...
...Thousands of dollars’ worth of longdelayed Social Security checks are suddenly freed, families reunited, cars fixed, and, occasionally, eyesight restored to the blind...
...One letter, from a puzzled welfare lady seeking to sublease a friend’s apartment in a housing project, is answered by a housing official who outlines all the reasons why he can’t meet her request...
...In threeanda-half years, we didn’t get one law suit...
...Careers and reputations can be smashed at will, small merchants driven into bankruptcy...
...In a more perfect world, the power to resolve complaints could be shared by everyone...
...The Evening Sun answers, “A note signed by J. Young stated that ‘a check for $36.1 9 was issued in full refund on payment of the bean-bag chair which was never delivered.’ ” Case closed...
...They provide editors with a convenient excuse not to do street-level consumer reporting...
...SSA will follow up and keep in touch with Mr...
...Kenan Heise says, “People tend to think that the columns get written by themselves, that they’re dumping grounds for the office drunk or weak writers...
...Those kinds of questions have no valid place in an Action Line column...
...The power of the press lies not in the superior abilities of reporters, but in the impact of publicity...
...We publish the most interesting and helpful answers...
...I paid $35 and have my canceled check, but my son never received the chair...
...We do give the product and the city, so people can figure it out for themselves...
...It just wasn’t worth the space.’’ Apparently, it never occurred to the editor that there might have been something wrong in St...
...Louis G lobe-Democrat closed down its Action Line, one editor commented, “It was really very good for a while and then the questions became repetitious...
...Why didn’t the company deliver the chair in the first place...
...On buying a fake antique painting: “The woman who sold you the picture provided Action Line with the name of her source for it...
...Today Woods is particularly proud because he has managed to fulfill a dying Briton’s request to find the man’s old World War I1 chum from Baltimore...
...Until 1972 the column was run by Jim Blakely, now ’ in the advertising business...
...He adds, “These papers are more cynical than the companies we deal with...
...Even the largest Action Line staffs are too busy nailing down the facts on publishable cases to concern themselves with the less dramatic ones...
...Here are some of the highlights of the Free Press’ crusades (and remember, most columns are worse than this one): “Action Line’s accomplishments have been both plentiful and unique...
...Blakely notes that he received no managerial or advertising pressure, and that the publishers and editors were pleased with the column...
...A fundamental misconception here is that trivial questions are needed to attract reader interest...
...the complaint against them is that they make the wrong choices...
...He notes, “It was our way of telling the community that a certain store wasn’t interested in you, the consumer.’’ The column also didn’t back away from occasionally naming doctors or lawyers who were screwing the public-a move that was, and is, almost unknown among Action Line columns...
...The Star won’t even make that great an effort, although it occasionally sends batches of complaints to agencies and department stores, casually followed up by a phone call...
...It is, after all, just another Social Security item...
...But there is another approach papers may take if they want to develop genuinely effective Action Lines...
...Perhaps the clearest indication that these papers never intend to act on the vast majority of complaints is their use of tape-recording systems to handle complaints over the telephone...
...At the Sacramento Bee, Action Line reporters tried to out-maneuver their editors’ no-name policy in the manner of foreign correspondents trying to fool censors...
...All the while, of course, readers were left to puzzle over which “radio shop” was the target of the complaint...
...The columns radiate a certain omniscient authority, announcing grandly, “YOU have received your $250 refund” or “A replacement shipment has been put in the mail for you...
...Under Blakely, the Gannett chain paper was transformed into a powerful consumer advocate...
...They have five investigators, plus the help of 15 George Washington University Law School students working out of a consumer help unit for credit...
...We should adopt this song as our national anthem, it really sends chills up my spine...
...H.” Social Security may or may not keep in touch with Mr...
...A guy’s attitude changes when his job’s on the line...
...The reason is obvious...
...You’d have to have a battalion of lawyers, and we don’t have that kind of staff...
...The Baltimore-Washington Action Lines, unfortunately, have chosen the timid approach.The papers simply avoid controversy by making cryptic references to, say, “a Bethesda travel firm’’ or “a large New York toy store...
...But that successful figure apparently includes cases where the target of the complaint simply says he can’t do anything...
...Can you help me get my money refunded?-H...
...So, too, Action Line editors, swamped with entreaties (on the larger papers they come in at a rate of over 2,000 per week), have to set their priorities, keeping an eye out for the truly heartbreaking problem...
...The rapid growth of Action Lines from the mere handful that existed at the beginning of the 1960s is potentially the most exciting new development in journalism...
...There’s no consistency, it’s all done on an ad-hoc basis...
...In potential at least, Action Lines are the single most effective remedy to this situation, because they can restore two kinds of accountability...
...The show claims to save the consumers who use the service a total of $1,000 a day...
...Carl H. filed for a hearing, which was received in the Annapolis office Oct...
...This added role is, undoubtedly, a serious new responsibility for any newspaper, but one worth undertaking...
...The theme underlying this kind of low-keyed Action Line reporting is unblinking faith in the good will of business...
...There are several variations to the no-name policy...
...In some cities, the columns go out of their way to shower supplicants with unexpected gifts...
...After studying a number of ombudsman-like operations, Michael Mattice, Laura Nader’s researcher, says, “An Action Line is the last organization I’d think of sending a person to...
...In addition, the Star has three staff reporters at work on the column...
...He became cooperative,” Blakely says...
...The worst offender, in this as so many other areas, is undoubtedly the Los A ngeles Herald-Examiner, which features questions like: “Can you please tell me when Irving Berlin wrote ‘God Bless America’ for Kate Smith and when did she first record it...
...If a person’s complaint is too similar to one that’s already appeared, he’s out of luck...
...But in the large cities and the giant organizations, there is small incentive towards honorable behavior because there are no “neighbors” watching...
...But by actively searching out and publishing the widest range of complaints, editors would be able to draw to Action Lines a rich variety of information about every facet of community life...
...Nonetheless, that’s not enough to excuse the shoddy performance of papers like the Washington Star, especially when it has three Action Line reporters...
...The current success of Action Lines, even with all their flaws, underscores both the power of the press and the failure of so many of our institutions...
...According to a spokesman for the “Contact 4” program in Washington, every one of the 100 letters a day they receive is acknowledged and pursued until the case is resolved, not merely referred...
...At too many papers, however, Action Lines are not drawing the most committed reporters...
...And in fact, many of these queries are actually planted by friends of a manufacturer seeking free advertising...
...Charles Walsh, a former Action Line editor in Connecticut, recalls his own paper’s approach: “It was okay to attack small merchants, ljut we didn’t name department stores, because they were big advertisers...
...We use their fear of putting names in the press, but almost none of the companies realize that we don’t actually print names...
...If somebody gets taken at a store, what use is it if you run a skeleton of the facts...
...On recourse with a rigged odometer: “You might ask your dealer to give you the former owner’s name, because it might have been that owner who turned back the odometer if it has, in fact, been turned back...
...At some papers, this means handling trivial questions that could be answered at any library...
...The addition of carefully screened volun teers would enable Action Lines to go beyond referrals to become day-to-day ombudsmen, while giving the students invaluable experience...
...Action Lines represent a tremendous opportunity for the press to fulfill its role as the fourth branch of government -an opportunity that is now being wasted...
...As one critic comments, “These columns are a beautiful opportunity to put the muscle and power of the press into the hands of the little guy...
...And we give attribution to the company spokesman, which puts the guy on the spot...
...From an average of 50 letters a day (he didn’t accept telephone complaints), he selected those that had made “reasonable attempts to solve the problem...
...Marjorie Holt in regards to this matter as I am not sure that she has received my letter as I did not know the correct address...
...The column’s main achievements are dramatic victories such as saving a mongoloid baby from deliberate medical neglect or prying loose $7,500 in insurance money...
...But we deserve good people...
...Papers that already feel weak will naturally try to avoid this kind of danger...
...We get a good response rate,” insists editor Dan Poole...
...Broadcasting stations and newspapers rarely make use of volunteer investigators and researchers...
...But in fact Action Lines rarely approach their potential, instead remaining content to solve isolated problems and answer frivolous questions...
...The true cynicism of the arrangement is shown by the Chicago Daily News, which several years back decided to erase the recordings of phone calls it didn’t consider interesting...
...We’ll do work for those who have exhausted other remedies, but we like to handle cases that will provide information fcr a few thousand others...
...The Star receives a thousand complaints a week...
...People refused to deal with them...
...The column staff consisted of Blakely and one secretary...
...defeated a braggart bass fiddler who claimed he was the fastestplucker in town by arranging a contest with someone still faster...
...The paper tends to use only those questions that are successfully solved...
...Kenan Heise, the aggressive editor of the Chicago Tribune’s column, claims they handle 90 per cent of their 2,000 weekly queries and says of some other papers: “I personally am totally disgusted at columns which cream off a few and throw the rest in the waste basket...
...0. McC., Lu t herville...
...They also cut red tape and give consumer tips...
...Instead, the citizens were blamed for being boring, and their grievance outlet was shut down...
...It’s surprising that Direct Line has any success at all, because of its refusal to print company names...
...But if a reporter’s work on the column is not drawing recognition elsewhere in the newsroom, it robs him of professional pride and ultimately blunts the co 1 um n’s effectiveness...
...We like to see if there’s reader appeal, and if there’s truly a need involved...
...Many of the official replies don’t resolve the original complaint, but will likely be chalked up as part of the “effective action response...
...All too rarely do the editors attempt any systematic analysis of the pattern of complaints, to see what it reveals about the performance of local government and business...
...Editors defend the stress on light, human-interest items...
...We publish the most interesting and helpful answers...
...The fear of many editors is that their column will end up like that of the St...
...Most editors, however, seem to prefer the old ways, content to rely solely on their own reporters, while complaining about under-staffing...
...In small towns there is a premium on fair dealing, because otherwise all the neighbors will find I out...
...By not doing so, they have given up the most powerful weapon at their command...
...At first glance, the columns seem to be daily miracles for the lucky few whose plight is deemed newsworthy...
...By naming the institutions, they can undermine the businesses which operate in the dark, depending on a pool of fresh suckers...
...Consumers are pretty desperate...
...It’s as if you were hungry and had to prove that your hunger was unique...
...But the columns often have the reverse effect, says Charles Walsh of Media & Consumer...
...Her source said that if you will provide him with documentation that the picture isn’t a painting, he will refund the remaining $50 to you...
...Louis that prompted such repetitious complaints...
...The Los Angeles Times or The Washington Post may tear apart a local retailer for his credit or warranty policies-but because the papers are the best way to reach the market, any businessman who withdraws his ads will be putting emotion over self-interest...
...The law students are supervised by a skilled professional...
...We just kept running the complaints until none of their insurance salesmen in a nine-county area was able to make a sale...
...A good sense of Action Line limitations comes from a look at the columns in the Baltimore-Washington area-The Washington Star, the Baltimore News-American, and the Baltimore Evening Sun...
...Still, editors feel a compelling need to find a bedsheet bearing a picture of linebacker Dick Butkus or a salon that buys fingernails...
...The approach of a few papers resembles that of the old TV show, “Queen for a Day,” where distraught housewives lined up before the audience to proclaim their troubles, and the person with the most pathetic story was chosen the winner...
...Those that do rarely go beyond routine referrals to the complaihedagainst company or agency...
...Light, trivial questions were dropped, and he ignored questions that could be answered easily by a trip to the public library...
...On bus damage to a car: “Repairs will be made promptly, he [an official] assured Action Line...
...Using Clout To return to the ineffective-buttypical Action Lines in the BaltimoreWashington area, the contrasts with the Rochester column are depressingly apparent...
...All in all, they’re hardly champions of the consumer...
...In many cases, nothing is even solved, which is all too typical of this brand of Action Lines...
...For all the good the taped complaints do, the other papers might as well follow the Daily News’ example...
...Under its editor, Gene Guidi, the column runs about 40 items from the roughly 2,500 queries it gets each .week...
...The only way to avoid this overloading is to pull out the telephone lines, develop a tough screening system to remove the frivolous written complaints, and then give serious and sustained attention to the complaints that remain...
...Pinning the Blame The Evening Sun is not alone in its timid approach...
...The column also served to strengthen the local consumer movement, including the usually weak Better Business Bureau...
...It was seat-of-the-pants justice,” Blakely says...
...That is to build such reader loyalty through highquality features like the Action Line that advertisers will be forced to stay in the paper...
...And by naming the individuals within the organizations, they can restore a measure of smalltown accountability...
...Blakely viewed the column as a “court of last resort,” so he used a screening process which allowed him to handle the most serious complaints...
...Woods picks it up and says, “I think I’ll use that in the column...
...We regret that we cannot answer, or even acknowledge, individual requests...
...We regret that we cannot answer, or even acknowledge, individual requests...
...But the missing ingredient of practically all Action Lines is a systematic follow-up of all referred cases...
...It’s as if you were hungry and had to prove that your hunger was unique...
...He explains his choices: “We are still a newspaper, not a consumer protection agency...
...Yes, these are real requests...
...What’s missing is systematic communication between the Action Line column and the rest of the newsroom...
...The result is that businesses and agencies don’t feel compelled to respond to Action Line requests...
...For example, WRC-TV in Washington, D.C...
...Part of the blame for this missed opportunity lies with the news editors, but part also belongs to the Action Lines for shaping the kind of complaints they receive...
...Reporter Lea Thompson of Washington’s WRC-TV says after little more than a month of handling complaints, “My God, we’re filling such a void...
...According to an extensive 1973 survey of Action Lines by David Beal, now with the Milwaukee Journal, less than half the columns regularly named names...
...Admittedly, most papers view themselves as neutrals, seekers of truth, rather than advocates...
...The papers all share a certain infuriating passivity, ranging from their refusal to print offenders’ names to an unseemly eagerness to accept official promises or excuses...
...often amount to little more than plugs for local businesses...
...Kenan Heise, the aggressive editor of the Chicago Tribune’s column, claims they handle 90 per cent of their 2,000 weekly queries and says of some other papers: “I personally am totally disgusted at columns which cream off a few and throw the rest in the waste basket...
...Those that do rarely go beyond routine referrals to the complaihedagainst company or agency...
...The bulk of complaints tends to be similar: delayed government agency benefits, unreturned refunds, faulty repairs, mailorder fraud, and needed municipal services, such as road repairs or garbage collection...
...If you have any problems, let Action Line know...
...They can revitalize our local institutions, reform the daily operations of business and government, even change the nature of democracy...
...The New York Daily News, with a four-person staff, is able to do this, and the request has considerable clout, because of the knowledge that the Daily News won’t hesitate to print names...
...The potential for these columns is almost unlimited...
...Action Lines can also serve to heighten concern’ with day-to-day realities in the rest of the paper, as opposed to the concentrated attention on the world of official spokesmen...
...The greater problem with printing these featherweight items is that the serious but unpublished complaints are simply ignored...
...Why didn’t phone calls and letters work...
...We like to keep it balanced, so there’s not too much drudgery,” says Dan O’Malley of the Daily News...
...A look at a few successful operations gives some possible answers...
...It is a misuse of public responsibility and a blotch on journalism...
...In fact, the Beal survey, backed by the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) group, statistically proved that columns that stress problem-solving are more popular with readers and, not surprisingly, solve more problems...
...What’s worse, he notes, is that columns that run light items tend to draw that kind of mail-which suggests that the Action Line editors themselves can define how broad their scope will be...
...And virtually every community of reasonable size has dozens of law and journalism students eager to put their talents to work...
...We look for items that are of particular reader interest or informative,” he says...
...His claim was turned down even before the agency received documentation from his doctor...
...With errant lawyers, Blakely simply went over the head of the bar association to an appellate court judge with disciplinary powers...
...The potential of Action Lines is not even limited to the improvement of journalism...
...They won’t, though, handle problems that are in litigation or that should only be taken care of by a priest, psychiatrist, or lawyer...
...He adds, “The smart businessmen in town saw it as a good check on their customer relations department...
...Actually, as Action Line editors and reporters told me, the job can be both professionally challenging and personally rewarding...
...He remembers one lawyer who ended up reimbursing a couple for tax penalties caused by his own laziness...
...At times he picks up a slip of gray paper with an inarticulate phone message typed on it and says, “Here’s another...
...But Action Line editors react only to the items with the most obvious news potential...
...In the letter he says he has only a seventh grade education, and notes, “On Nov...
...At least the guy explained why he couldn’t do it...
...actually tries to solve the problems that don’t go on the air...
...Finally the executives from the national office came down to straighten things out...
...It has campaigned successfully on behalf of a woman reader who complained that D-cup bras unfairly cost more than smaller sizes...
...provided the proverbial two front teeth for Christmas for a boy who really needed them...
...The paper receives an average of 150 queries a day...
...After beating the hell out of Social Security for a while,” he says, “we didn’t have to bother...
...Like other Action Line editors around the country, Woods has to be selective about what he publishes...
...Consisting of five or six brief items a day, they purport to help consumers solve their problems with businesses and government agencies...
...According to the Beal survey, one third of the papers have received some sort of complaint from companies named in the Action Line, and 13 per cent have faced canceled ads or threats of legal action...
...Here is the official “response”: “Mr...
...As a result of the column’s vigilance, one doctor was expelled from the local medical society...
...Take some common examples of reader service...
...The key to their success is simple: staff...
...Yet the move to use local talent must be made if Action Lines are ever to be more than, at best, half-hearted referral services...
...Many papers contain a disclaimer similar to this one printed in The Philadelphia Znquirer: “Action Line editors consider every request you send us...
...As the Baltimore Ne ws-A merican’s Jon Stewart explained, “We have to survive as a business...
...Most of the legwork for the Action Line column can be done by bright, hardworking people capable of learning two basic reportorial skills, asking questions and checking facts...
...Handling the Flood Action Line columns are capable of servicing the public, attracting readers and solving unpublished problems Press Managing Editors (APME) group, statistically proved that columns that stress problem-solving are more popular with readers and, not surprisingly, solve more problems...
...The Globe editors agreed to answer every question, and they discovered to their horror that it took a 19-person staff...
...they have therefore become among the most widely read features in newspapers...
...Another method was to print the names of stores that “told us to mind our own business...
...But the Herald-Examiner mentality permeates other Action Lines as well, which answer pointless little questions in pursuit .of the daily chuckle...
...The paper was blitzed with 13,000 questions a week...
...Most remain satisfied to refer those kinds of complaints to the local toothless bar association or medical society...
...Other letters in the pile cover questions about sales tax, faulty tires, Social Security insurance, and excise taxes...
...Blakely cites the case of a national insurance company that was the subject of frequent complaints to his column because of poor service to policyholders...
...It is a misuse of public responsibility and a blotch on journalism...
...He adds, “At one time we were leaning too much in the direction of individual complaints...
...Leads that might be useful to reporters just aren’t available in sufficient volume...
...Each day, there were six satisfied people out of a million-and-a-half readers, so we needed a greater degree of reader interest...
...The greater problem with printing these featherweight items is that the serious but unpublished complaints are simply ignored...
...Blakely also referred cases to the medical society-but followed up to see what kind of action was taken...
...He says, “We weren’t going to hold everybody’s hand...
...A former PR man, he spends most of his time at his desk, reading through letters and marking them for referral...
...Moreover, the requests for hard-tofind items-“Where can I find a pink llama-skin coat...
...It’s very gratifying,” Woods says...
...At the Detroit Free Press, a request to arrange a backstage visit with Debbie Reynolds is magically transformed into a catered theater party, complete with complimentary flowers...
...Jon Stewart of the News-Amen’can is surprised that companies even bother to respond at all...
...But it’s a beautiful training ground for new reporters to serve their apprenticeship...
...Handling the Flood Action Line columns are capable of servicing the public, attracting readers and solving unpublished problems all without unnecessary strain on budget and staff resources...
...A recent academic study under the direction of Berkeley anthropologist Laura Nader indicated that over half the columns don’t try to solve problems unlikely to be published...
...The danger with Blakely’s approach is that a column too eager to fix blame can easily be abused by an unscrupulous editor...
...Each day readers of the more flamboyant Action Lines are encouraged to believe that their deepest longings (within the bounds of good taste) are theirs for the asking...
...After studying a number of ombudsman-like operations, Michael Mattice, Laura Nader’s researcher, says, “An Action Line is the last organization I’d think of sending a person to...
...If they start publishing serious queries about, say the local hospitals, more of their mail will be in that vein...
Vol. 7 • April 1975 • No. 2
