Reacting to our coverage of how former Carrollton Mayor Becky Miller apparently falsified some portions of her biography, Lisa Rovedo asks, “Since when did The Dallas Morning News become the National Enquirer, or should I say another grocery store rag? … As a citizen of Carrollton, I base my decisions on who to vote for on the candidates’ merits and political positions, not random accusations concerning someone’s past.”

From what I can tell, we handled this story correctly. The mayor’s opponent raised questions about whether she had falsified tales of a brother who died in Vietnam. We found evidence that she had. We could have simply printed that story, but we chose to spend a bit more time researching other parts of her background. We found that they didn’t check out, either. That pattern seemed to be too important to ignore. So we printed our story. The mayor’s allies have argued that in printing it, we influenced the outcome of the election. That may be true – the mayor had won the early vote, which ended before our story was printed, but she lost on Election Day. Suppressing the news, however, also would have influenced the outcome of the election, by keeping voters ignorant of our findings. We try to share what we know and let voters decide how much it matters to them. It seemed likely to us that many ordinary voters would consider the question of honesty when judging a candidate’s merits.

Bruce Foster of Oak Point writes to say that we “ignored” the Battle of San Jacinto, which was fought on April 21, while on May 5 we covered the Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Dallas’ Mexican-American community. “I for one am tired of celebrating someone else’s culture and history in deference to my own,” he writes. “It’s time for a wakeup call, America, before you lose your identity.”

We printed a photo and short item about the battle of San Jacinto on April 22, on the lead Texas and Southwest page in the A section. As for Cinco de Mayo, it began as the celebration of a Mexican military victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla, in 1862. Since then, it’s grown to be a much bigger event in the United States than in Mexico. It has become, in Wikipedia’s words, “a date to celebrate the culture and experiences of Americans of Mexican ancestry, much as St. Patrick’s Day, Oktoberfest, and the Chinese New Year are used to celebrate those of Irish, German, and Chinese ancestry respectively.” To that list, I would add my personal favorite, as a POCO (Person of Cajun Origin): Mardi Gras. A bit of personal reflection: My world is full of things that can’t help but boost my blood pressure. Those things do not include watching people dancing, singing, playing music and celebrating their great-grandparents. But that’s just me. The more important question is our newspaper’s coverage philosophy. We try to share the most interesting news and photos of the day, to help people participate in (or avoid) the crowds and festivities, or to help them enjoy a great photographic moment after the parade is over. With one-third of our city’s population of Hispanic origin, it would be remarkable if we chose to ignore Cinco de Mayo.

Dave Crowder wonders why we circulate our Spanish-language publication, al dia, for free, while we charge for the English-language paper. “And this is on top of naming illegals as Texan of the Year, while I have to spill my guts in all respects and pay a fortune to do legal immigration for my Venezuelan wife,” he says. “You people ought to be ashamed of your supposed American selves.”

Dave, I’m sorry to hear about the immigration problems your wife faces. Good luck with that. Lots of great people came here from South America, including my mother. So I’m pulling for you. The pricing gap between The News and al dia reflects important differences between the two papers. The News is a big, premium product, supported by a newsroom of more than 400 journalists. On some days, the price readers pay for it doesn’t even cover the paper it contains. The Spanish-language publication is a startup, with far fewer pages and a far smaller staff. It also is aimed at a different audience, which often can’t afford to pay for a paper like The News. Even so, it is an audience worth serving, both because they need the information and because we can make a small profit by linking them with our advertisers. A profitable al dia does not detract from The News. In fact, it helps support the journalism we provide to the whole community. Certainly, we’re not discriminating on basis of language. We also distribute Quick, our small, English-language tabloid, for free. Finally – once again in the interest of lowering unduly high blood pressures – some readers very clearly misunderstood the editorial board’s Texan of the Year pick as an endorsement of illegal immigration, when in fact it was a full, fair and detailed discussion of the heated debate over illegal immigration. Here’s the start of that editorial column:

He breaks the law by his very presence. He hustles to do hard work many Americans won't, at least not at the low wages he accepts. The American consumer economy depends on him. America as we have known it for generations may not survive him.

We can't seem to live with him and his family, and if we can live without him, nobody's figured out how.

He's the Illegal Immigrant, and he's the 2007 Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year - for better or for worse.

The idea of nominating people as “person of the year” whether one personally likes the choice has deep roots in American journalism, by the way. Time magazine recognized both Hitler (1938) and Stalin (1939), not because it thought they were wonderful but because it knew they were important.

Robert Marquardt of Plano writes to lament headlines that “strain so hard to be humorous and entertainment that it is difficult to tell what the story is about from reading the headline. … Please return to making headlines and captions descriptive and factual.”

Headline writing is one of the most demanding arts in newspapering. We give our copy editors three to five words (and maybe 10 minutes) to capture the meaning of even the most complex stories. It’s a wonder their heads don’t explode. I tried it for a while, and mine did. That’s how I got into upper management. But that’s another story. Sad to say, we do occasionally print headlines that try so hard to be interesting that they lapse into incoherence. On the other hand, sometimes I wake up and see such a divine combination of words that one almost hears the angels singing. We’re doing a couple of things to bring more clarity to our pages: First, we’re employing labels that clearly identify the story’s subject. Second, we’re asking our headline writers to remember that clarity is everything. If the headline is unclear, nothing else matters.

Paula Wharton writes to ask why we have no coverage of baseball teams at Dallas County Community College campuses. “Your coverage of Major League, Division I colleges and High School baseball should never exclude the Junior College teams,” she writes. “They are of equal importance. It is important to note that there are many Junior College players that are drafted by Major League teams.”

We have only so many staffers and only so much space, so our newspaper coverage of junior college baseball is often limited to mentions of upcoming games or of recent scores. I have two suggestions, though. First, we’re always interested in young people with the potential to go professional. Anyone with that kind of story tip is welcome to call our Sports department at (214) 977-8444 and share it. Or drop an e-mail to our sports editor, Garry Leavell, at gleavell@dallasnews.com. Second, our Neighborsgo publications are in the business of celebrating community achievements. If you have great pictures of star players in action, we invite you to post them yourselves via our Web site at www.neighborsgo.com. Your school booster club or athletic office may have still photos or video, or stories. We’re happy to host them; they’ll all be available online, and some may make our print publications. I hope that helps.