Namesakes in the news can confuse

The letter to the editor in the Thursday morning newspaper was from Gregory A. Campbell of Eddington, an assistant district attorney for Penobscot and Piscataquis counties for more than 20 years. Because most anyone in the news business knows that the situation he described is not all that rare, his letter caught my fancy.

Campbell had felt compelled to write his letter to the editor – his first ever, and probably his last, as well, he said – to set the record straight and preserve a number of valued friendships in the law enforcement business.

He wanted the public to know that there are two Gregory A. Campbells living in Eddington – one who occasionally writes letters to the editor that are critical of law enforcement, and one who doesn’t. He is the latter, this Gregory A. Campbell wrote, and he wished to make it clear that he has “the utmost respect for these men and women [in law enforcement] who dedicate their lives to protecting us all.”

Gregory A. Campbell The Latter acknowledged that Gregory A. Campbell The Former has a right to express his opinion as often and as bodaciously as he desires. Still, the Eddington attorney considers it his duty “to not only clarify that I am not the individual who has written many letters to the editor in the past criticizing rape prosecutions, police officers and other issues, but also to vehemently disagree with his criticism of them.”

My immediate reaction upon reading Campbell’s letter was that, in my case, he was preaching to the choir. My second reaction was rotsa ruck, Gregory A. Campbell The Latter, in your noble quest to gain relief, because as President George H.W. Bush was fond of saying, it’s probably “not gonna happen.”

For years, I had the pleasure of toiling with the late Ken Ward of Brewer in this newspaper’s editorial department. Just one little “t” short of being bona fide namesakes, we perpetually confused readers, some of whom remain confused to this very day as to who wrote what in those halcyon days of yore.

He’d get my telephone calls. I would get his bills, including a memorable one from the hospital upon the birth of his daughter. He wrote a column about harness racing. I wrote a column about nothing, same as now. His adoring horse lovers would write to thank me for coverage of their sport. My disgruntled critics would write to him, suggesting that the world might be a better place had he stuck to picking potatoes for a living. We concluded early on that there was no use worrying about the mixup. Things were never going to turn out OK with readers, correct-Ward-wise. So we had fun with it.

But, as the Campbell letter suggests, name confusion is not always such a hoot. Perhaps no one is more familiar with the situation than news reporters and editors, print and broadcast, whose challenge is to produce copy that is accurate and libelproof.

It’s one thing when namesakes in the news are separated by geography, occupation, celebrity and the like. It’s quite another when they live cheek by jowl in the same small town. The potential for mass confusion on the public’s part would likely not be great in the first instance. In the latter case, it’s practically guaranteed.

Several decades ago, a prominent businessman in a town in this newspaper’s circulation area had the same name, including middle initial, as a local boozer of some notoriety. If memory serves, the two may even have lived on the same street, on the theory, I suppose, that the coincidences in name weren’t sufficiently confusing to the public.

When the old sot’s name, tied to some alcohol-fueled offense, was occasionally included in the court listings, the newspaper could expect a telephone call from the other guy demanding that we make it clear that he was not the one who had run afoul of the law. Again.

I’d commiserate with him, assuring him that I knew a little something about the name-confusion game. Eventually he came to understand that the BDN would take care to identify people in the news, including middle initial or name, street address and the like if necessary, but except for some profoundly unusual circumstance that might arise we couldn’t reasonably be expected to report who a person was not.

Identical names can occasionally cause inconvenience, or worse. The reality, however, is that – short of changing our names or replacing them with numbers – mankind is pretty much stuck with the situation, as either Gregory A. Campbell of Eddington might attest.

BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may contact him by e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.