As you’ve no doubt noticed, I have a new hobby. It’s hounding the DMN to make a correction about a Justice Antonin Scalia quote that the paper mangled. While enjoying my hobby, I’ve poked at the night editor on whose watch the error occurred. His name is Chris Siron. I’d like to acknowledge that my hobby now transcends Siron. I believe the paper’s failure to correct its mistake is an institutional failure. And I now feel bad about poking Siron. Someone I know who works at the paper shared some details about the man. I thought it only fair to pass them along:
I don’t know any particulars of the Scalia situation, but I doubt Siron’s being as calculating as you think. That’s because Siron is incapable of being calculating. He’s almost freakishly principled and is probably the single most overworked person at the paper.
Basically, he oversees a small cluster of editors and one to two reporters responsible for covering all breaking news at night, editing all stories that come in late, editing the wire copy, managing our website at night, putting together the Lotto numbers and Boy Scout pages and crap like that, and answering ridiculous phone calls from old lonely people who constantly call the paper at night. I’ve often seen him come in on his days off or in the middle of his vacations. Never saw him take a dinner break.
Because none of the bosses ever stay past 6 p.m., the night desk is sort of the shitting ground of The Dallas Morning News. Whenever we do a layoff, more work gets assigned to it, and no resources added, because Siron always finds a way to deal. Siron has worked on the night desk from time immemorial and literally expects to die on the night desk, probably from stress. He’s not a climber. Not a suit. He comes to work in old sneakers and hair still wet from the shower.
He has probably passed your inquiry up the chain to a dep managing editor. Probably isn’t responding to you promptly because he’s slammed, as he is every night, and is unused to interactions with the day dwellers.
If the reporter got the Scalia quote wrong, that needs to be corrected, so I’m all for your campaign. And there are plenty of editors at DMN who would try to brush it under the rug. But Siron’s not one of them.
