Mailbag: Star articles on Arcade Fire and TikTokers spark reader letters

When we get things wrong, we hear it from our readers.

With help from associate public editor Brian Bradley, I sort through notes from the public concerning mistakes in our newspaper and on our website. As the Star’s public editor, the role of my office is to decide whether we’ve made an error, and if so, take steps to address it with a clarification or correction.

Because of comments the readers included and the issues addressed, three recent complaints stand out. These examples show how passionately our readers respond when they’ve seen something wrong, or believe they have — and how carefully they scrutinize points many of us might not readily pick up on.

Last week, a reader reached out a bit frustrated. Among their concerns was a Nov. 27 feature article about three Indigenous Two-Spirit people, Kairyn Potts, Keisha Erwin and Owen Unruh, who create content for the short-form video hosting platform TikTok. The article, the reader pointed out, referred to the artists several times as “TikTokers.”

“Tokers are people that smoke marijuana. This is not an appropriate word to use when referring to Indigenous people,” the reader said.

“I think the term should be TikTockers, TikTokkers or maybe TikTok-ers,” the reader said, using a hyphen for the third example. They argued this was a mistake that needs correcting in the Star.

Given this input, I read the story again, and to be honest I did get the sense that TikToker looked a bit strange.

But TikTok itself refers to those who post videos on its social media platform as TikTokers, and the term has come into common usage in other media outlets all over the world.

So for now, we’ll be sticking with the term, I told the reader.

John B., another reader, got into a spirited back-and-forth with me a few days ago. His complaint was that we missed a key point in our recent story about Grammy-winning Montreal band Arcade Fire’s upcoming concert, and the controversy over its frontman Win Butler.

The Nov. 29 story includes remarks from Arcade Fire fans who said they want refunds for the Toronto show, amid allegations of sexual misconduct against the band’s singer-guitarist Butler — allegations he is denying.

The article pointed out that Canadian singer Feist and U.S. singer Beck had already pulled out as opening acts for the show, after the Butler controversy broke.

The story quoted a consumer protection class action lawyer, who said that while she understood the concerns of ticket holders, Ticketmaster’s refund policy left “no grounds on which the issuer has to issue a refund.”

Ticketmaster has a purchase policy it posts online that says all sales are final, with refunds only permitted in limited circumstances. The lawyer quoted in the story said that typically, an individual ticket holder would sue for breach of contract if they felt they weren’t getting what they paid for.

However, the lawyer went on to say, she didn’t see grounds for a breach of contract pertaining to the Arcade Fire show.

In his letter to me, John B. said the Star writer erred in “failing to mention” that the opening act as advertised was Beck, and that his pullout is “actually a pretty clear case of breach of contract.”

In a followup email, I told John B. that I don’t think the reporter erred at all — the story is about fans being upset with the allegations against Arcade Fire’s singer, and wanting their money back based on those grounds.

Arcade Fire is the headliner; Beck and Feist were supposed to open, I responded.

John B. responded that for many people, including himself, “the opening act is the main draw.” He sent a link to an online Global News story that quoted a woman saying she and her husband were excited to see Beck, who was their “main act” and they were disappointed the singer pulled out of the Edmonton show with Arcade Fire.

Beck, who has eight Grammy awards and 22 nominations, “is not your typical opening act,” John B. continued.

“That Beck was opening, was heavily promoted … the basis for a refund is completely justified. In the U.S. this would become a class-action suit for certain,” the reader argued.

While I found his point of view interesting, I concluded that there was no error in the article.

In another recent note, Kathy was the only reader to point out that a character named Connie in the play “Red Velvet” is a Trinidadian woman — not a Jamaican, as Star theatre critic Karen Fricker wrote in a recent review.

“Not a small mistake in reviewing a play that deals with identity …” Kathy wrote me.

“Red Velvet,” being performed at Streetcar Crowsnest on Carlaw Ave., is a play based on the real life of Ira Aldridge, who became the first Black man to play the part of Othello at a major venue in London, England. The play delves into the complex racial hurdles Aldridge faced at the time.

In the original play written by Lolita Chakrabarti, the character Connie, an assistant to the theatre company putting on “Othello,” is Jamaican.

Looking into Kathy’s complaint, I learned that Starr Domingue, the actress playing the role of Connie in the Toronto production, is Trinidadian. Given her background, the actress sought permission to tweak that character detail, I learned.

Cherissa Richards, director of the Toronto performance, told me she contacted Chakrabarti the playwright to ask permission to make the change.

Chakrabarti gave her full blessing.

Fricker told me that for her review, she used the published script of the play as a reference afterwards, rather than the production company script, and missed the brief reference during the show to Connie’s Trinidadian background. I issued a correction for online and print.

This episode “reinforced” to Fricker how important it is in the future to do her due diligence and obtain the production company script, she said.

It’s the reader engagement aspect of my job that I really enjoy. Keep the letters coming.

Donovan Vincent is the Star’s Public Editor and based in Toronto. Reach him by email at publiced@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @donovanvincent