Readers tell me consistently that they want The Kansas City Star to pay special attention to its role as government watchdog. Today, both sides of the aisle are demanding close coverage of the debate over proposed health care legislation currently in Congress.</p><p>And it&rsquo;s obviously no secret that some passions are running awfully high. The news has been full of stories of anger bubbling over at town hall meetings convened by members of Congress. An example ran on Page A-1 in The Star on Aug. 8, but it gave the impression that six arrested at a St. Louis meeting were all opponents of reforming the system &mdash; but that wasn&rsquo;t the case. One arrestee was a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and at least some of the other five were attending in support of reform. A correction on the 11th made that distinction.</p><p>I&rsquo;ve seen a similar pattern in what readers have been telling me about media coverage of the discussion: lots of enthusiasm, often buttressed with lots of facts. </p><p>One e-mailer sent an impassioned, 889-word plea for the paper to address line items he finds objectionable in H.R.3200. &ldquo;Does The Star believe its readers to be stupid?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;We deserve better.&rdquo;</p><p>Reform supporters have also found fault with some of the paper&rsquo;s coverage. &ldquo;I think you are legitimizing anger over false premises,&rdquo; said one caller. &ldquo;I voted for Obama and I think the nation&rsquo;s (health care) system is broken, but I actually disagree with the wholesale overhaul they&rsquo;re proposing. But I also see all this garbage people are passing around about what the bill really doesn&rsquo;t say, and that&rsquo;s whipping them up. Some perspective from the press is in order. Break down the proposal clearly, and make people informed.&rdquo;</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Imprecise Web pointer irks</span></strong></p><p>As I&rsquo;ve written before, print readers often object to items in the paper telling them there&rsquo;s more information available on the Web. &ldquo;If I wanted to read my news on a computer, I would do it,&rdquo; said a caller this week. &ldquo;It is a poor substitute for the convenience of the printed page.&rdquo;</p><p>A caller last week pointed out a logistical problem in the briefs included under the heading &ldquo;Around the Nation&rdquo; in the A section. </p><p>A note with the short summaries told readers, &ldquo;More on these stories at KansasCity.com/nw&rdquo;</p><p>But when my reader navigated there, she discovered that none of those topics appeared on the Web page that day.</p><p>That URL goes to KansasCity.com&rsquo;s &ldquo;Nation & World&rdquo; page, where content rotates throughout the day. At the reader&rsquo;s suggestion, editors changed the print reference to &ldquo;For more national news,&rdquo; which should avoid confusion in the future.