How do you cover a presidential election in a family newspaper when one or more of the candidates frequently says things that are insulting, off-color ... or worse?

That’s a problem the Toledo Blade and other newspapers around the country are facing these days, especially thanks to the flamboyant Donald Trump.

Nobody even four years ago could have imagined a major party candidate discussing the size of his manhood in a nationally televised debate — something, to be fair, that came after one of his rivals publicly implied that Mr. Trump might not be well-endowed.

Nor would anybody have expected a candidate to call his opponents insulting names, make fun of their looks, or imply that a newswoman was affected by “blood coming out of her whatever,” or to say it was “disgusting” that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took too long in the bathroom during a Democratic debate.

The times really are a’changin — and many readers are disoriented, to say the least. Ray Polker of Grand Rapids, Ohio, called me after the March 2 paper landed on his doorstep.

He was unhappy because The Blade quoted Mr. Trump, who had made a speech in Columbus and, among other insults, referred to “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz and “Little Marco” Rubio.

“Why are you printing that language?” he asked me.

Well, I told him that I can’t speak for the editors — but that this man is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, that he says similar things on television every day, and that The Blade shouldn’t be in the business of concealing reality.

After that, Mr. Polker said he saw my point. Few readers may now remember this, but 40 years ago newspapers around this country were faced with a similar and even more graphic problem.

Earl Butz, then the secretary of agriculture under President Gerald Ford, was overheard by a reporter for Rolling Stone answering a question about why few African-Americans voted Republican. Mr. Butz’s reply was extremely racist and obscene.

The only part I will quote here was his assertion that the “coloreds” wanted three things, one of which was loose shoes. Newspapers were far less likely to print blue language then, but The Blade and a number of other major newspapers printed it.

Why? Paul Block, Jr., then the publisher, told me once that he thought readers had a right to see that a member of the President’s cabinet used such language in public.

Mr. Butz was soon out of a job, and after the election, so was President Ford. But controversy over politicians’ language continues.

Dr. Jim Hennessy wrote to ask me about The Blade’s use of a quote by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who was one of the presidential candidates this year. On Feb. 27, the newspapers quoted him as saying “my party has gone batshit crazy.”

“Is that (language) acceptable now?” he asked.

To that, your ombudsman replied A) an important U.S. senator said it, B) the standards of acceptable discourse have changed, and C) there are many people who would agree with Mr. Graham.

Fred Dalton, Jr., of Millbury, Ohio, is one. He is 89, and thanks to a bad fall and it being winter, he wrote to tell me he’s been watching more TV than usual, and can’t believe what he’s been seeing.

“I’ve never heard any rhetoric like I’ve heard coming from these Republicans.” He told me he thought The Blade had become a biased Republican newspaper for not denouncing the antics of these candidates more vigorously. “Those people are very bitter and dangerous — they belong on the funny farm,” he said.

It is going to be a long, strange, and fascinating year.

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Reader Kenneth Wiczynski was upset about The Blade’s coverage of the Michigan presidential primary. His copy of the March 9 paper “denoted (Ohio Gov. John) Kasich as placing second when he actually finished third. I’m an independent and expect facts, not wrong false interpretations by The Blade.”

What happened here was no conspiracy — just late returns. The paper had to be printed before all the numbers were in. Mr. Kasich was in second place most of the night, but late returns from counties with a lot of evangelical voters pushed Mr. Cruz ahead; he got 328,894 votes to 320,505 for Ohio’s governor.

These returns and a correct story were soon on the Internet, and Thursday’s paper made it clear who won.

Sometimes readers complain because they haven’t read a story too closely. Deborah Bewley of Bowling Green was upset about The Blade’s coverage of the Feb. 27 South Carolina primary.

“I read the story through twice, and nowhere could I find actual vote results.” She wondered if this was based on partial returns. “Even then, I would expect to see some numbers to back up the headline,” she told me.

Well, your ombudsman sympathizes. As an old-school political junkie, I miss the days when newspapers ran columns of state-by-state and county-by-county figures, even of partial returns.

Papers have less space these days, and those numbers can be found fairly easily on the Internet.

But when I turned to Dave Murray, The Blade’s managing editor, he pointed out that deep within the story the newspaper provided the results, if not the absolute vote totals :

“With 99 percent of the precincts counted, Mrs. Clinton won 73 percent of the vote, picking up 39 delegates. Mr. Sanders won 26 percent of the vote, gaining 15.”

Mr. Murray also noted that all of us sometimes miss a fact in a story when we read it — something your ombudsman knows all too well from painful experience. By the way, Ms. Bewley, the final popular vote was Clinton, 271,514, Sanders, 95,977.

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Finally, Linda Meeks complained that “The Blade continues to use the wrong acronym when writing about the Toledo Correctional Institution. The correct acronym is ToCI. TCI is the acronym for the Trumbull Correctional Institution.”

Well, that may be the way the bureaucrats in the prison system see it, but Managing Editor Murray replied “We choose to call the state prison in Toledo TCI on second reference, because its name is the Toledo Correctional Institution. Our readers don’t know about the Trumbull prison, they know about the Toledo prison.”

Far as your ombudsman is concerned, that’s fine as long as the newspaper is consistent … and I can manage to stay out of both institutions.

Anyone who as a concern about fairness or accuracy in The Blade is invited to write me, c/​o The Blade; 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, 43660, or at my Detroit office: 555 Manoogian Hall, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202; call me, at 1-888-746-8610 or email me at OMBLADE@aol.com.

I cannot promise to address every question in the newspaper, but I do promise that everyone who contacts me with a serious question will get a personal reply.

Reminder, however: If you don’t leave me an email address or a phone number, I have no way to get in touch with you.

Jack Lessenberry is a member of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former national editor of The Blade.

First Published March 13, 2016, 5:00 a.m.