Jill Rosen / AJR

With a Sharpie in his left hand, David House flips through the pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, scribbling a number onto each local bylined story. At the end of the week, he’s tagged more than 100.

So he goes to find a big roll of tickets, the kind you might get at a fair. For every marked story, House rips off a ticket, then dumps the whole lot into the lid of the box that came with his ombudsman stationery. Stirring them up a bit, he carries the package into the editor’s office, announcing, “OK, we’re ready for a drawing.”

House lifts the lid high over his head as Editor Jim Witt reaches up, fishes around and pulls out–ta-da!–No. 41. But for this chosen one, there’s no prize waiting, unless your definition of “prize” involves having David House put your page-one story about Lockheed Martin under a post-publication microscope, scrutinizing every fact, every quote.

Grim, but such is life these days at a paper that’s been burned. And the burn victims are mounting.

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