Jayson Blair’s deceptions at the N.Y. Times ran unchecked. Could that happen here?

The caller was firm but gentle: People do not get sucked out of aircraft, even though a headline in our newspaper last week said they had.

You see, he explained, jet aircraft are pressurized, so when a door opens the pressurized air rushes out, sweeping – not sucking – people, luggage and anything else with it.

“Thanks,” I told the caller, “I’ll make sure our editors get the message.”

Our readers are sharp, and there’s not much we do that gets by them. They have no reservations about calling us to say something wasn’t right. When they do, you’ll usually see a correction the following day on the second page of our newspaper.

And that, in a way, is my answer to a question several people asked me last week: Could a Jayson-Blair-style reporter exist at the Sun Journal?

While I never say never, I find that possibility extremely remote for four reasons:

First, our reporters do not use unnamed sources except in the most extreme cases and only with prior discussion with our editors and approval from me. I can’t even recall the last time an unnamed source was used by a reporter working for the Sun Journal.

At newspapers like the New York Times, where Blair worked and fooled copy editors and readers on scores of stories over a period of years, unnamed sources litter stories.

It’s easy to make up quotes and facts if you are not required by your bosses to attach sources to that information. The policy enables a liar like Blair to flourish undetected.

Second, we cover mostly local news. If we call a van a car, somebody will tell us we got it wrong. If we misspell somebody’s name or title, an angry reader or relative is on the phone bright and early telling us about it.

Our reporters are accountable to the people they cover. They need to face them the day after the story appears at the cop shop or at the city hall. It’s virtually impossible to make something up when you have to work with the people you are writing about.

Third, we have an unusual person in an unusual position at the Sun Journal. Mari Maxwell is our reader representative, and she fields most of the calls from readers complaining about unfairness or inaccuracy in the newspaper.

She listens objectively to our customers, researches their complaints and makes sure that corrective action, if warranted, is taken.

The importance of this position is that it immediately puts a neutral person in charge of handling an accuracy complaint. As a result, a reporter or editor inclined to ignore a valid complaint doesn’t get that opportunity.

Fourth, we check the accuracy of our stories.

Years before I came here, our publisher, James Costello Sr., began sending accuracy checkup forms to people whose names appear in the newspapers. Each week, 20 or more of those letters go out under his signature to the folks who are quoted or named in our newspaper.

The forms ask eight questions ranging from “Was your name spelled correctly? to “Was the item a fair representation of what transpired?”

These forms eventually come back to me and I go through each one of them personally.

Fortunately, nine times out of 10 they come back carrying compliments about our reporters and photographers. Most people thank us for doing this quality control check. Some people frequently in the news even point out they have never had a newspaper check on its accuracy.

Occasionally, the forms do point out problems. Our editors then explore those problems with our writers and oftentimes call the person who has filed the complaint.

My guess is that Jayson Blair would have had a thick file of such complaints sitting on an editor’s desk if the New York Times had checked on his reporting.

My point here isn’t that we don’t trust our reporters, nor is it that we are so swell for doing these things.

To me – and to the many other people who work in our newsroom and throughout our company – accuracy is paramount. It is the foundation of what we do.

If you can’t believe what you read, then we have failed. It’s as simple as that. We take every factual error seriously, we seek to correct them when they occur and we regret them deeply.

But there is a world of difference between an error and a deliberate lie.

The first we regret and seek to avoid.

The second, the lie, is a hanging offense. It’s the third rail of journalism – touch it and you die. The unforgivable sin, it normally results in the immediate dismissal of the person responsible.

That’s the policy here, and that’s the policy at most newspapers.

The New York Times is a great newspaper. Unfortunately, however, its desire for the “inside story” and its unmonitored use of unnamed sources have seriously damaged its stellar reputation.

I am certain that Jayson Blair would have had a short career at the Sun Journal.

Rex Rhoades is executive editor. His e-mail address is:

[email protected]