Stop the presses! Itasca, indeed, sets world record
Records, they say, are made to be broken.
And when we got a little confused on whether the village of Itasca had, indeed, broken the much-coveted Largest Parade of Subarus record by getting 339 Subaru owners to drive their cars down Irving Park Road and other thoroughfares last Saturday morning, boy, did we hear about it.
Here's how the confusion occurred:
When we heard the village, which has its own colorful Subaru squad car, was trying to organize all known Subaru owners to participate in their Guinness Book of World Records-setting parade, reporter Elisabeth Mistretta leapt into action. The village told her it would need somewhere between 200 and 500 cars to set a record. That seemed a little vague, so Beth did some further research. She couldn't reach a media rep for Guinness, so she scoured its Web site for some insight. But that was tough as not every Guinness record is listed online.
(And just a little aside: One might argue a setting a record for a parade involving a specific type of car might be getting a little obscure. Is there, for instance, a record for longest ellipse in a suburban newspaper column in Illinois ........................................................? I think just set a record. But I digress.)
Anyway, Beth couldn't find anything on the Guinness site about record-setting car parades, but she did discover several online blogs and publications with items declaring that the United Kingdom Subaru tribute to racer Colin McRae broke a record for largest mosaic of Subarus (almost 1,110 spelling out his name and creating a Scottish flag) and largest parade. This seemed like useful information, so she included it in her story.
On the big day, Saturday, weekend reporter Jack Komperda, armed with Beth's advance story, attended the event. He talked to participants, sponsors and observers. At least one of the latter seemed more perturbed about traffic being tied up than anything else. Jack did not, however, come across the Guinness "adjudicator," and he had to leave for another assignment we had given him.
Jack, by the way, knows a thing or two about Guinness records. A few years ago, he chronicled an attempt by two young men who traveled the nation, trying to set a Guinness record for viewing the most Major League baseball games in a certain time span. Initially, it appeared the guys had pulled it off, but the Guinness adjudicator didn't certify the record until a month or two later.
So not having talked to anyone from Guinness, Jack worded his story carefully, trying not to state equivocally that a record had or had not been officially set. But he did include the number of cars on hand (almost 340) and mentioned the 1,100-car record we had researched earlier. So, a copy editor, not illogically, wrote a headline saying the record was "not in the cars."
Well, we walked into a buzz saw on Monday. There were calls and e-mails wanting to know why we conspired to make Itasca look so bad. We'd lost readers over this, they said, with more sure to come. So, instead of a correction, we wrote another follow-up story setting the record straight.
In that story, as we did in the advance story (and as I'm doing here again), we mentioned that this was a charitable endeavor. The record-setting parade raised about $7,000 for P.A.W.S. and Salute, Inc.
That has mollified some people, but not everyone. Two Itasca officials suggested this week yet another story setting the record straight about the record-setting event. One even said it ought to be on the front page.
To that I can only say: We're sorry. We made a sincere effort to get it right in the first place. Tried to make it right with a follow-up story. Proof again, I guess, that one can't be too careful in this business.