Furor filled the phone lines Monday after The Free Press published a front page, above-the-fold story with an unfortunate juxtaposition of headline and photograph.

A story on North Mankato’s idea to restrict some billboards was illustrated with a picture of billboards along Highway 22 between Mankato and St. Peter. The biggest and most prominent billboard was one by the Assembly of God Church in St. Peter that is large and very yellow. Its only word is “Jesus.” Unfortunately for us the headline over the story read “North Mankato cracks down on eyesores” with the word “eyesores” right over the photo of the Jesus sign. The size of the Jesus sign was about the same size as the headline.

You get the picture.

Looking at the picture after pulling my newspaper from the mailbox, I knew I was in for a morning of angry phone calls. Contrary to popular belief, the editor doesn’t see every story or every picture before it goes in. There would be no way logistically to do that, plus it would be undemocratic and dictatorial. Still, the buck stops with me.

I personally took about 10 phone calls, and our customer service people took another 10, a relatively small number out of 22,000 households who get The Free Press. Still, it’s a significant number. Most of the calls couldn’t believe we would call “Jesus” an “eyesore.”

Of course, we didn’t mean to. It wasn’t intentional. It’s one of those things that happens when people put together 50,000 words and dozens of photographs a day and must, I say must, have it done by midnight, without exception.

So, if a juxtaposition that obviously will offend people is missed by one of our late night copy editors, I’m not going to get too upset, especially if they met deadline. This issue was discussed. It’s always important to raise issues with staff if we’re offending people. If we’re offending, we’re not communicating. That’s not good for a newspaper.

For the record, the photographer, Pat Christman, says he was only doing his job, and doesn’t mind me telling you he is very involved in his church, working mostly with the youth groups. He doesn’t write the headlines.

Assembly of God Pastor Greg Stone called me on Wednesday, and I don’t think he’d mind me telling you hewasn’t upset. But he knew he would have to answer questions that night at church. He knows we have done at least two stories on his ministry that were very positive overall. A story on the church’s yellow mustang with the very same Jesus logo was sent to the 89 other daily newspapers in our chain.

Some commented that we would have not made the same mistake with a sign that espoused “Allah” or Jewish worship. We, of course, try to treat every religion with the same sensitivity. We know people of different faiths and we know faith is important to people.

In the end, we want readers to know we think about these things, not always before they happen, and once you run 22,000 copies of a newspaper through a Web press, it’s hard to take it back.

Still, we accept the criticism. It helps raise our awareness to the sensitivity people have about things. As I told Pastor Stone, perhaps Jesus will forgive us.

Joe Spear is the managing editor of The Free Press. Contact him at 344-6382 or jspear@mankatofreepress.com.