"Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing" is a lively and lucid response to the situation, and is designed to alert editors and authors to some of the pitfalls of linguistic implication that lie all around them.

A banner alerting editors to the vote was displayed on the site since the weekend and any editor could vote on the various options and express their opinions.

Two copy editors who read the column alerted senior editors, according to their depositions.

And he had called The Bay News, a community newspaper, and alerted editors and photographers to a possible incident.

The lawyers had also alerted other tabloid editors.

Part of the evidence is the taped testimony of Anita Harkins, a copy editor who said she had alerted higher editors to potential problems with a column that compared Mr. Jewell to Wayne Williams, the convicted killer linked to more than a score of Atlanta child murders.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The Times, said that freelance writers were required to alert editors to a conflict of interest, or the appearance of one, before accepting an assignment.