Another day and another tortured clarification/correction in The Star.
With good reason, The Star is promoting on its website its full coverage of last week’s “duck” disaster in Branson. As I said in my last post, The Star has done an excellent job on the story, throwing at least half of its metro staff at it. Today, however, it ran a clarification that can only be described as maddening.
For decades, The Star has had a stupid policy of not repeating, in corrections and clarifications, the original error or problematic wording.
What this does is leave readers scratching their heads and wondering exactly what the paper got wrong in the first place.
And maybe that’s what The Star wants: to plant seeds of confusion in order to airbrush the original sin.
…Let’s break this down by printing today’s clarification and then working backwards to the original sin.
Here goes…
“An article in the July 21 edition on a federal agency’s warnings about duck boats like the one that sank at Table Rock Lake should have clarified that Ripley Entertainment bought the Ride the Ducks operation in 2017.”
…Now, I’ll bet those of you who didn’t see this “clarification” earlier are wondering what impression the Saturday story left that warranted this.
Wouldn’t that be helpful to the reader?
And, hey, isn’t that part of what a newspaper is supposed to do — un-complicate things?
So, I went back to the Saturday story about warnings issued by the National Transportation Safety Board regarding duck boats, and I found the part that triggered the clarification. Here’s the key paragraph…
“Ride the Ducks would open in Philadelphia, and a year later, Herschend Family Entertainment would become Ride the Ducks’ sole owner. Herschend Family Entertainment was founded by Jack and Pete Herschend, the creators of Silver Dollar City in the Ozarks.”
The story does not mention Ripley.
Sooooo, what The Star is ostensibly clarifying today is the fact that Saturday’s story left the impression that Herschend Family Entertainment is the current owner of Ride the Ducks.
I guess it’s asking too much of The Star to clarify — really clarify — the point by simply saying…
“An article in the July 21 edition on a federal agency’s warnings about duck boats like the one that sank at Table Rock Lake left the impression that Herschend Family Entertainment owns the Ride the Ducks operation in Branson. However, another operator, Ripley Entertainment, bought the operation in 2017.”
Just like that, The Star could have explained the problem with the original story and, at the same time, set the record unequivocally straight. Instead, it chose, as it has for years, to tiptoe around the problem and, in the process, further cloud the skies.
This decades-old approach to clarifications and corrections is, simply, ridiculous. Common sense should dictate adopting a system that clarifies what needs to be clarified and corrects what needs to be corrected. All in all, the paper’s screwy policy seems, to me, to spring from the old adage, “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Well said!
Thanks, Mike.
Thank you for saving the paper from itself. The Star ought to be paying you to this day.
On the mark as usual, Fitz. Reminds me of a little kid who cannot admit making a mistake. Time for The Star to put on its “big boy” pants with corrections.
Thanks, Bob and Kevin…The truth is, though, the more I urge them to change, the less likely it is that constructive improvement will take place. The last thing they’re going to do is let themselves get “pushed around” by a pesky blogger. No, they’re going to keep plunging ahead into the darkness.
This clarification / correction answers one question I’ve had: why did Steve Paul, who appears in most every article, conduct private inspections on the Ducks in 2017? These were done on behalf of Ripley prior to their purchasing the Ducks. And though he apparently made note of the engine design flaw, nowhere in his official report to Ripley did he comment on the canopy – clearly the most dangerous element in the boat. And then the Coast Guard added their stamp of approval with a February inspection.
“State officials said the Coast Guard regulates such craft; its officials did not immediately respond to requests for more information. Spokesmen said the Department of Transportation doesn’t regulate duck boats because they’re amphibious, and the Department of Public Safety doesn’t in this case because it’s a commercial vessel, as opposed to a recreational one.”
Other sources claim the Coast Guard inspects these boats annually, and the one that sank had been inspected this past February – and passed. The captain also apparently held a Coast Guard Master’s License.
On a different but related subject to the Star, I notice the 816 North section has gone missing from the Wednesday paper the past two weeks. Another, I suppose, of what they hope is another invisible cut.
Jim, please tell me it wasn’t you who sent that fake Trump tweet about Bryant’s. :-)
Rest assured, I would never do anything like that, Gayle…Besides, I can’t; I’m not on Twitter. What a waste of time and energy…Hard to believe our President has made it his playground. You’d think Turnberry golf course would be sufficient.
You do know that smiley symbol means I was kidding, right?
Yes, but I still wanted to address Twitter.
It really bugs me that, in both the on-line and electronic versions, The Star blatantly states the feds have “revealed” the on-board video from the duck, then clarify in the copy that we won’t actually be able to see it until after the investigation. Think it’s a very deceptive way to grab attention through a headline.
I didn’t understand the thrust of that story until I got well into it, Gayle. Like you, I didn’t understand for too long that the reporters were describing a timeline of a video, not the video itself.
It’s unusual for a timeline, or description, of a video to be released, rather than the video itself. That was the source of the confusion, but the headline writer certainly compounded the situation with the words (as you pointed out), “Feds reveal video.” That sure sounds like they revealed video!
The lead writer — I believe it was Eric Adler — got the lead right by saying that the duck entered the water when the water was calm, but he should have made it clear in the second paragraph that the National Transportation Safety Board had not released the actual video but had released a “detailed description” of what was in it. The story also should have mentioned early on that this video was not the same as the video that a bystander took — video that got a lot of attention…This is the first inkling many readers probably had that there was additional video from the duck itself.
All in all, this was a story that required a lot of care and a lot of editing. It didn’t get enough of either.
I believe The Star has entered the clickbait realm. And whatever the print version of that would be called (shades of National Enquirer!).
Just online, Gayle, not in the printed edition…yet.
I haven’t seen our paper copy of The Star yet today but isn’t it always the same as the eEdition (referring to the “reveal video” headline)?
Yes…My point, though, is the click-bait strategy is obvious in the website version (not “e,” just what you see when you go to kansascity.com), but they aren’t going after “clicks” in the print or digital replica (“e”) edition.
I don’t think the intention was to mislead on the story we’re talking about — with the goal of getting more readers; it was just not presented as clearly as possible.
“Company policy would be to forego water entry if severe weather is approaching the area.”
The problem with a policy like this is it’s impossible to put into practice. What constitutes “severe”? What is the definition of “approaching”? What is “our area”? How recent does the “alert” need to have been issued? And who is doing the alerting? Local weather? National? Eye-ball it from an I-phone app? How does “Probability” fit into the ultimate question: “Launch or Don’t Launch”?
Mike
How about some common sense, like monitoring the forecast and not going in the water if a storm is in the offing?
THE TIMELINE with a couple additional items:
545: The NWS issues a severe thunderstorm warning for several MO counties NW of Springfield. Taney County (and Table Rock Lake) are not included in the warning. The warning expires at 630.
628: “Person X”, while monitoring the weather, knows there is no warning for Taney County, and since the warning for surrounding counties will expire at
630, tells the crew to take the water route first.
629: The Ride-the-Duck captain makes a comment about looking at the radar map. Likely it was something to the effect, “Looks like we dodged one this time!” The boat begins loading passengers.
630: The 545 NWS warning (for counties that did not include Taney County) expired. At this point, according to the NWS, THERE IS NO SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR ANY COUNTY IN MISSOURI.
632: The NWS issues a severe thunderstorm warning for three counties in MO: Taney, Stone, and Barry. Table Rock Lack is specifically mentioned. The warning extends to 7:30.
633: Probably unaware of this new warning, the boat leaves the terminal and heads toward the boat ramp.
Likely in here, either “Person X” or the crew became aware of the new warning, and did not enter the water.
HERE IS THE KEY ITEM:
645: The NWS issues a severe thunderstorm warning for several counties in MO: included in these counties are specific regions of Stone County (northern) and Barry County (northeastern). Taney County is not included at all in this warning. This new warning is effective until 730. This new warning canceled the previous warning for Taney County.
650: The Ride-the-Duck captain gives safety instructions at the boat ramp.
655: The Ride-the-Duck boat enters calm waters. This makes sense, because there is no longer a warning for Table Rock Lake.
Between 6:56 and 7 p.m. The captain allowed four different children to sit in the driver’s seat, while he observed and assisted.
7 p.m. and 25 seconds. Whitecaps rapidly appeared on the water and winds increased.
7 p.m. and 42 seconds. The captain returned to the driver’s seat. The driver lowered both the port and starboard clear plastic side curtains.
7:01 p.m. The captain made a comment about the storm.
7:03 p.m. and 15 seconds. The captain made a hand-held radio call, the content of which is currently unintelligible. Likely, his comments were: “What the hell is this – I thought the NWS cancelled the warning for us!”
Journalists, eh, writers, ah, people that get into writing for money have always had egos out of proportion to their contributions…(political cartoonists and arts/music/restaurant/gossip critics, bless their heart, are at the top of the list.) You don’t get promoted to these cut throat positions with having a major blind spot.
And thank God there are egotists writing and causing us to think.