THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504140017
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Public journalism has been the talk of the newspaper biz.
It boils down to journalists getting involved in their communities by encouraging people to speak out and by listening to what they say.
One example was last Sunday's front-page invitation to readers to join the debate over Sen. John Warner. The outpouring of response is scheduled to run today.
But a more subtle challenge to readers came at the end of Tuesday's story on a proposal to recruit minority police and firefighters in Portsmouth.
At the end of the story, under the subhead ``Points to discuss,'' were a half-dozen questions for Portsmouth residents to consider before that night's public hearing. Questions like, ``As a taxpayer, are 21 new officers worth a 4-cent increase in the property tax rate?''
Some readers found the questions confusing. Mike Fremaux, who reads the paper in Newport News, thought they were raised by someone in the story.
``Then I realized it was the newspaper's slant on what's important and what isn't,'' he said, ``and it seems to me this blatantly shouldn't be there . . . this is not an editorial.''
I also found the questions somewhat unnerving. Were they rhetorical? Why were they tacked onto a news story?
The questions should have been separate but they weren't rhetorical, said Tony Germanotta, who edited the story.
This was public journalism on deadline - a way of saying: Think about what's happening in your city. Ask yourself if a tax hike, more officers, more minority hires, are or are not in your best interest.
Still, raising these questions in the spirit of public discourse isn't easy. Some readers will be convinced the newspaper has an agenda or is oversimplifying.
``Our role traditionally has been not to raise questions we can't answer,'' said Germanotta. ``This is tough. These are underlying value questions, and we'll keep trying to do that.''
BROKEN SPANISH. ``Se habla Espanol!'' proclaimed the headline on Monday's MetroNews front.
It was about Spanish being the second language of choice at many schools. The story itself dabbled in the language. ``Como esta usted?'' ``Muy bien, gracias. Y tu?''
Ouch! If you habla espanol, then you know that, in Spanish, language names are lower case. That tu and usted aren't exactly parallel.
And, of course, there's the omission of accent marks and inverted punctuation. All are missing again here because we can't typeset foreign symbols in text.
It's an omission that bears remedying. We should be able to quote other languages, maybe even run a story occasionally in that language. Porque no?
MISSING SCHOOLS. Raymond P. Marion of Virginia Beach noticed that, in a Business Weekly column citing the ``wide range of skills in Hampton Roads,'' virtually all local colleges and universities were mentioned. All but two, that is.
``Noticeably absent from the list was Norfolk State and Hampton University, two large, diverse black universities,'' said Marion. ``I felt this looked out of place.''
I agree with reader Marion that it was a glaring omission.
PARTY POLITICS. Most callers berate the newspaper for being too liberal. So it was refreshing to get a call from Gertrude Kaplan of Norfolk.
Kaplan hated the April 8 front page, the one with the big thumbs-up photo of House Speaker Newt Gingrich after the GOP's first 100 days.
She thought it was ``biased and prejudiced and opinionated'' to play up Gingrich and run just a small photo of Clinton.
Meanwhile, Michael J. Wade of Virginia Beach went to bat for the GOP. He wants to know why last Sunday's story about embattled Chesapeake Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer identified him as a Republican when party affiliation has ``nothing to do with the subject.''
Maybe not directly, but the story was about Dwyer and the council. And, as the story said, he's ``one of the most influential Republicans on the council.''
Likewise, when you're an influential Republican like Gingrich, you get a big photo on the front page. It works both ways.
by CNB