Our city editor, John Carney, recently blogged about not shooting the messenger -- blaming the newspaper when it reports bad news. I want to add to that -- don't shoot the messenger when the messenger didn't even bring you the message!

I had the delightful experience (cough cough) of listening to someone rant and rail against the T-G for things that may (or may not) have happened before I was even on staff. It didn't really bother me, but I could tell those having to listen to it were uncomfortable, knowing that I was completely innocent of all charges.

We don't ever get immune to abuse -- and we shouldn't -- but sometimes it gets a little eyebrow-raisingly weird. My favorite story was when some guy called another paper I worked at, raising you-know-what about his presence in the arrest report.

He wasn't upset that we reported his DUI.

He was ticked because we spelled his name wrong.

Sometimes, people forget that we have to work from records and reports that were prepared by other humans -- which means they are subject to human error (like the officer misspelling the name in the DUI report). Sometimes, people forget that, unlike one major (alleged) news station, we have to have some sort of factual basis on which to build a story. Sometimes we simply can't get those facts, especially in the crime reports, because the police seal the reports while the crimes are still under investigation.

Do we miss stuff? Do we get names, dates and other info wrong? Of course we do. Sometimes the incorrect information is given to us. And sometimes it's our fault. Like those folks preparing the reports from which we work, we're human and also prone to human error. We try our hardest not to make mistakes -- which is why we can't afford to become immune to criticism.

We're very lucky in one way -- we have thousands of you to help us get it right. When you make an error at work, do you have more than 10,000 people looking over your work to help you when you mess up?

Believe me, missing or misreporting the news frustrates us as much -- if not more -- than it does you.