A play that didn't play

An attempted play on words backfired on us and resulted in a major error running on page A-3 of Sunday's Sun Herald.

Nearly 200 people turned out for the Harrison County Democratic caucus; not zero, as our story and headline clearly indicated.

The first sentence of the story was an attempt to play on the phrase, "What if you threw a party and nobody showed up?"

Problem is neither I, as editor on duty, nor our readers really got the play.

The headline, "Caucus draws no attendance" indicates our headline writers didn't get it either, and made things even worse.

Words are our business and we try our best to be careful with how they are used. In this case, we failed all around. We regret our handling of this story, and apologize.

-- Geoff Pender, political editor

Error in caucus story

An attempted play on words backfired on us and resulted in a major error running onpage A-3 of Sunday's Sun Herald.
Nearly 200 people turned out for the Harrison County Democratic caucus; not zero, as our story and headline clearly indicated.
The first sentence of the story was an attempt to play on the phrase,"What if you threw a party and nobody showed up?" Problem is neither I, as editor on duty, nor our readers really got the play.
The headline, "Caucus draws no attendance," indicates our headline writers didn't get it either, and that made things even worse.
Words are our business and we try our best to be careful how we use them. In this case, we failed all around. We regret our handling of this story, and apologize.
-- Geoff Pender, political editor

New blog from Chimneyville

We're excited to have launched another blog, this one from that place where all our tax money flows: Jackson. Sun Herald Political Editor Geoff Pender and newly minted Capitol Reporter Michael Newsom will post about goings on in our capital, everything from great to not-so-much. We hope there's a good dose of humor involved, as well.

Actually, we don't hope that. We expect it. Check out Capitol Watch for the fun and games.

Why Chimneyville, you may ask? That's what it was after Union troops laid waste during the Civil War, burned down buildings with chimneys sticking up.

A matter of trust

The Sun Herald adhered to a long-standing policy on when to use the name of someone accused of a sex crime when writing about a teacher charged last week with sexual battery.
We have received calls and asking us why we named the accused. Our policy has been to not name the victim or the accused except in specific circumstances:
-- If there is more than one felony charge filed against the accused;
-- If the accused is indicted;
-- If the accused is in a position of trust, such as in this case, a teacher.
We recognize that these are only charges and are following the process through the court system.
But when those charges are made against someone in a position of trust, we also bear a responsibility to the public to inform them of those charges and who they are levied against.

Mombo to sunherald.com/mardigras

If you missed our special Mardi Gras section Thursday, you can check out all the history and routes of South Mississippi parades at sunherald.com/mardigras. There are also stories on the tradition of Mardi Gras, its history and schedules for our Carnival brothers and sisters in New Orleans and Mobile.

m.sunherald.com

When you're out on the road, don't forget you can always check in to m.sunherald.com to get the latest news, business, sports and weather. It's a just-the-facts alternative if you don't have the snappy iPhone or Blackberry and want to keep up with what's going on.

Send us your videos, your pictures of huddled masses

Christmas and New Year's is barely behind us, and we're about to stomp the gas on Mardi Gras season. Our special section with information and maps for all the local parades publishes this Thursday, and we'd like you to post your Mardi Gras-related videos and pictures at videos.sunherald.com. There's a Mardi Gras category, but feel free to send us whatever you have on any subject. We'd love to see anything beautiful, funny, precious or odd.

Videos and pictures go through a screening process, and if anything sneaks through, you can report things you take issue with through the site.