THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505050024
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Often, readers take us to task for what is not in the paper. Last week, it seemed like most callers wanted one or another story to disappear.
Here are items that, if they had their druthers, would never have been published:
Last Sunday's front-page story, ``Robertson's book parallels militia's ideas.''
Nearly a dozen callers blasted the paper for being paranoid, biased, anti-Christian or just taking a cheap shot at Pat Robertson. One caller praised the newspaper's ``courage'' for running the story; the rest were angry.
``At best, this article is the problem you're accusing Pat Robertson of,'' said L.J. Dyke of Norfolk. ``It's paranoia, and it's not right for the front page of this paper. If someone is going to express their views, they should be expressed on the page for that.''
An Associated Press story Wednesday quoting the NAACP's Myrlie Evers-Williams as saying, ``Imagine the monstrous consequences if Newt (Gingrich) succeeds in making starvation public policy in a society where the poor are heavily armed.''
``That is a blatant threat for armed revolution and I don't think that belongs in the paper,'' said Wallace Hunter of Virginia Beach, reminding us that President Clinton recently warned against extremist language.
Wednesday's MetroNews photo of prisoners playing cards in a Virginia Beach cell. The picture illustrated a story on overcrowded jails.
Carolyn Belson, a teacher at Sparrow Road Intermediate School in Chesapeake, thought the photo sent the wrong message to students. She uses the Wednesday Virginian-Pilot as a teaching tool.
Belson asked her fifth-graders if they could tell why the photo bothered her. They caught on immediately. The prisoners ``look like they're having a good time,'' her class responded.
Donald Kaul's Tuesday op-ed column, which concludes, ``I have some constructive criticism for the right wing: Shut up. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kilowatts.''
Jack Kalpakian of Norfolk wishes he hadn't bought the paper that day.
``People in a democratic society do not say this offensive stuff,'' he said. ``The last time I read an editorial like this was in the Sudan, for heaven's sake. We had a field marshal who was the dictator and he didn't like the newspaper, so he banned it.''
Crime stories that focus on suspects. For reader Alex Hawryluk, the final straw was the April 28 report that lawyers for killer Willie Lloyd Turner are trying to get him off death row on the grounds that 15 years in jail was punishment enough.
Your crime reports ``glorify by giving attention to kids who shoot other kids,'' said Hawryluk. ``You put pictures in the paper, you provide notoriety, and in some cultures, this is a form of heroism. . . .
``Why not take a little more energy and find the family of a man who was killed?''
There's a sort of theme here: Don't give us bad news about good things. Don't put a positive spin on the negative.
Don't make us uncomfortable, don't tell us what we don't agree with.
Actually, our callers had some good points to make. The jail photo, for one, looked like boys' night out at the club (if you overlooked the bars on the window).
But I'm less comfortable with censorship, with glossing over the lumps and bumps in life, than I am with letting a disturbing image or unsanitized prose get into the newspaper.
As a journalist, I always thought that a controversial story was a successful one. And by controversial, I don't mean inflammatory. I mean the sort of story that people debate over the water cooler or on talk radio or in calls to the public editor.
A story or photo or commentary that leaves a reader glassy-eyed or indifferent was considered a dud. Obviously, none of the above were.
They may not have delighted us but they made us think and argue and speak up. Sometimes, that's all that counts.
by CNB