"Unconvincing apologies" (#156; Topic A)

THE WEEK, an innovative new weekly, excerpts magazine articles around the world in the past week (not unlike Readers' Digest for books). In its 6/9/06 issue is a 2-page spread on "Unconvincing apologies," containing selected samples from a book by Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin, My Bad. One entry is from editors of Lexington's Herald-Leader. Since my wife was graduated from a women's college in nearby Louisville, anything related to Kentucky is of great interest to me, particularly since I never had the occasion to visit Louisville. (We met in LA; she was an intern in a hospital in Pasadena, and I was a lowly assistant professor at USC.) So I paid special attention. The entry reads: "It has come to the editor's attention that the Hearld-Leader neglected to cover the civil-rights movement. We regret the omission." The entry was dated 7/4/04; according to the two compilers, the then-separate papers had "40-year-old policies ... to relegate coverage of sit-ins, marches, and the like to brief mentions in a column called 'Colored Notes.'" I ask myself: Were I a student at U of Ky, in Lexington, would I miss the coverage? Probably not -- a frugal student would have neither the money nor the time to read a town paper, so whatever was included or excluded would mean absolutely nothing. I was a student at U of Illinois; the paper I could afford to read is the Daily Illini, a student-edited gown paper free of charge. Still, I find the Herald-Leader notice surprising -- not for the omission, but for taking 40+ years to bring this omission to the editor's attention. In this information age, when reporters vie for 40-second advantage, can anyone afford a 40+ year wait?