Missing information

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A clarification published Tuesday provided information that wasn’t in a Nov. 25 review. The Dec. 2 story of a woman whose life was changed by an errant bullet included a detective’s contact information but not specifics on how to help the woman.

Two other stories last week brought up the same question: When does The Times include information that a reader moved to action by a story might need?

From art reviews to coverage of people in need, the issue comes up periodically: When readers finish a story and want to take action -- be it to buy a product, learn more about a group, support a cause or make a donation -- contact information is missing from a story.

Tuesday’s clarification said that a review about the DVD release of the complete ‘Man From U.N.C.L.E.’ episodes ‘should have noted that they are available only through Time Life (www.timelife.com) and won’t be in stores until next fall.’

Sunday Calendar editor Bret Israel OKd publishing a clarification after several readers phoned to ask where they could get the DVD. Says Israel, ‘We had sort of implied that the DVD could be bought now in stores, by how we packaged the article. And to those without computer access (probably a significant group), the contact information would be helpful.’

However, says Israel, ‘The broad issue here comes up all the time and I don’t know any hard and fast rule. In the culture pages especially, we report on books, movies, plays, etc. that people can buy or see. On the one hand we want to provide them helpful information so they can do so; but we are keenly aware that we are not a P.R. arm of a theater or book company. We have many formats -- lists, boxes, etc. -- to try and highlight and navigate this balance, but there are always odd or special cases.’

The Nov. 30 article from Calendar headlined ‘An easy way to find that book,’ about an ongoing effort to digitize all published works and make them available online (says the professor who spearheaded the project, ‘Anyone who can get on the Internet now has access to a collection of books the size of a large university library’) neglected to include the website. The absence of that information led to this gentle chide from reader M.J. Snyder in Los Angeles: ‘It would be a lot easier to find the book if you printed a Web address.’

And a Nov. 22 story from the California desk headlined ‘Hotline calls reveal thefts, welfare fraud,’ about a Los Angeles County report detailing employee misconduct, did not give the number for the hotline.

In the case of the million books, editor Lee Margulies, who edited the story in Calendar about The Universal Digital Library, says of leaving out the website: ‘It was entirely an oversight. AP had the address at the end the story, rather than in the text, and I cut it without thinking how relevant it was in this instance.’ (That contact information: http://www.ulib.org/)

The article about the fraud hotline reported: ‘During the six months ending Sept. 30, county officials opened 348 investigations into allegations of employee wrongdoing called in to the hotline and substantiated 73.’ Leaving out the number was an oversight, says California editor David Lauter, who sent a note to editors who worked on the article: ‘The story was mostly about the findings of the audit, not about the hotline. But I’ve got no doubt that there were inquiring readers out there who would have wanted to know the hotline number, and it would have been better to give it to them.’ (L.A. County’s Fraud Hotline: (800-544-6861)

And that article about Rose Smith, the then-23-year-old woman paralyzed from the waist down after being struck by a stray bullet outside her home? The detective’s number was given at the end of the story in a request for information from those who knew about the brawl that led to Smith’s injury, so readers had a place to start. But as a result of that very article, says reporter Jill Leovy, AM Federal Credit Union has set up a donation account for Smith and her family. The e-mail Leovy is sending to those who inquire: ‘You can send checks to the address below, or, if you prefer to send a non-monetary gift, the police detective investigating the case has offered to handle that. You can contact her by e-mailing her at the address below. Make checks to: Rose Smith, and please reference on the check the donation account number 34123. Send them to: AM Federal Credit Union, 101 W. Walnut St., Gardena, CA 90248. For other gifts or materials, please email LAPD Det. Linda Heitzman, Southeast Division, at: Lheitzman@yahoo.com.’