Comics Poll at 'Plain Dealer' Wasn't Intentionally Biased

By: Dave Astor Computer and phone glitches made it seem like a comic had a home-field advantage in a Plain Dealer survey to determine which of two strips to keep. But the snafus were not intentional.

The Cleveland newspaper has been conducting a Sept. 27-Oct. 11 poll asking readers to choose between two comics: "Rhymes With Orange," created by Massachusetts-based Hilary Price, and "The Meaning of Lila," created by a team that includes people who work for Cleveland-headquartered American Greetings.

Price contacted E&P about something strange she saw Tuesday in, of all places, the cooking area of The Plain Dealer's Web site. In that area, the paper asked readers to either "Vote for 'The Meaning of Lila' at (216) 999-4768" or "Vote for 'Rhymes With Orange' at (216) 999-5733." But the "Lila" line was in bigger and bolder type.

"They weren't treating the two strips equally, as evidenced by the font difference," said Price.

Elizabeth McIntyre, assistant managing editor/features at The Plain Dealer, said Wednesday that text from the print issue of the paper was accidentally routed to the site's cooking area on Tuesday. She added that the site automatically turned the first sentence into a headline -- resulting in the bigger and bolder "Lila" type. McIntyre said the glitch was discovered by around noon on Tuesday and the comic-poll copy removed.

Then there were Wednesday phone problems. E&P called (216) 999-4768, and heard a recording indicating it was the correct number to vote for "Lila." But when E&P called (216) 999-5733, the man who answered said the number was not the place to vote for "Rhymes."

A story in another part of The Plain Dealer site listed the vote-for-"Rhymes" number as (216) 999-4733 rather than 5733. E&P called the 4733 number 13 times Wednesday over a period of five hours, and kept getting a busy signal.

McIntyre said the busy signal was caused by a phone-system problem that The Plain Dealer fixed after hearing about it from E&P.

"This has obviously been a flawed procedure," she added, speaking of the phone and Web snafus that affected the survey.

Will poll results be adjusted to make up for the flaws that temporarily handicapped "Rhymes"? There's no need: McIntyre reported that Price's comic was winning the survey, anyway. "We're going to keep 'Rhymes' in the paper," she said.

"That's wonderful news," Price responded late Wednesday afternoon.

While happy she's winning The Plain Dealer survey, Price did add that "comic polls are a tricky business" and not liked by most cartoonists. One reason is that surveys usually don't attract a representative sampling of readers, and another is that newer comics often don't fare well in polls because readers haven't had a chance to get used to them.

Though "Rhymes" is definitely staying in The Plain Dealer, the paper won't decide whether or not to keep "Lila" until after the survey ends Oct. 11.

During the polling period, "Lila" has been replacing "Rhymes" in the paper -- and Price is bothered by that. "They're not showing the strips side by side to help people compare," she said. "People are voting for one strip without having the other in front of them."

McIntyre explained: "We've run 'Rhymes' for two-and-a-half years. Our readers are familiar with the strip. If both strips were new to the paper, we would have run them side by side."

Price said she could see McIntyre's point, but still thinks it's better for readers to look at competing comics at the same time.

King Features Syndicate distributes "Rhymes" to more than 100 papers, while Creators Syndicate handles the recently launched "Lila."