
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994                    TAG: 9406160017 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A12    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Short 
DATELINE: 940618                                 LENGTH:

READERS WILL PERISH OF BOREDOM

{LEAD} Like Oliver Twist who asked for more because the gruel was so thin, this reader of the ``new'' Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star feels unfed when the last page of an edition has been folded. The pinched, bloodless fare being served to your readership by an uptight editorial policy is so lacking in nutrients that it is transparent.

This lack of substance makes me long for the good meals provided by Earl Swift, Jerry Alley, nose-to-nose and toes-to-toes combat on the columnists' page, and the spicy stews formerly served by staff writers who used to dig up their ingredients in the local gardens of politics and social controversy.

{REST} The only morsel I have to chew on these days (other than Guy Friddell's ever-tasty collards, butterbeans and tomatoes) is my enjoyment in watching the pretzel-like postures required of the rabid-right conservatives in defending the Twilight Zone candidacy of Oliver North.

This new version of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star is probably as close as we could collectively come to a near-death experience. Any more such progress and we will take the final step over the line into communal zombiedom. Cause of death will be intellectual starvation and terminal boredom.

JO HASKETT HOWREN

Virginia Beach, June 7, 1994

by CNB