Kathleen Rutledge: Why you saw a Spanish headline in Friday's paper
Some readers were puzzled to find an article in Spanish inside the local news section of the Friday Journal Star.
We published the story in English on the front page of the local news section. A brief explanation pointed readers to the translation inside.
We now realize that some readers missed that editor’s note. Instead, they happened upon the Spanish article as they leafed through the pages and didn’t know what it was. I’m sorry we didn’t label our efforts better.
Here’s why we published the translation:
On Thursday, we learned from Lincoln police that a lack of accurate information about the killing of Maria del Rosario Moreno was leading to fear and confusion among some Spanish-speaking people in Lincoln. Some erroneously thought a killer was still at large, for example.
We considered printing a story about the case for our Spanish-language publication, Hispanos Unidos. But the next issue of that newspaper will not appear until next week, too late to do much good for people in need of immediate information.
We settled instead on translating the Journal Star story into Spanish.
We did wonder whether Spanish-speaking people would think to pick up the Journal Star for news. Police interpreter Erica Birky Rios said they do.
That’s why you saw Spanish on Page 7B of Friday’s paper.
I regard this as a special circumstance, not a regular feature in the Lincoln Journal Star. By devoting some space to this translation, we were able to do a small public service. It fits within a newspaper’s mission to provide accurate information about an important story and to try to calm some unwarranted fears.
Kathleen Rutledge is the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star. Contact her at 473-7334 or krutledge@journalstar.com.
We published the story in English on the front page of the local news section. A brief explanation pointed readers to the translation inside.
We now realize that some readers missed that editor’s note. Instead, they happened upon the Spanish article as they leafed through the pages and didn’t know what it was. I’m sorry we didn’t label our efforts better.
Here’s why we published the translation:
On Thursday, we learned from Lincoln police that a lack of accurate information about the killing of Maria del Rosario Moreno was leading to fear and confusion among some Spanish-speaking people in Lincoln. Some erroneously thought a killer was still at large, for example.
We considered printing a story about the case for our Spanish-language publication, Hispanos Unidos. But the next issue of that newspaper will not appear until next week, too late to do much good for people in need of immediate information.
We settled instead on translating the Journal Star story into Spanish.
We did wonder whether Spanish-speaking people would think to pick up the Journal Star for news. Police interpreter Erica Birky Rios said they do.
That’s why you saw Spanish on Page 7B of Friday’s paper.
I regard this as a special circumstance, not a regular feature in the Lincoln Journal Star. By devoting some space to this translation, we were able to do a small public service. It fits within a newspaper’s mission to provide accurate information about an important story and to try to calm some unwarranted fears.
Kathleen Rutledge is the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star. Contact her at 473-7334 or krutledge@journalstar.com.
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