THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506240009
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
The weather is a big deal to most people. At least, I always thought it was. But when the color weather package was changed last weekend, only about a half-dozen readers called to rain on our parade.
Compare that to the hundreds who complained about the changes in the green sheet, and I have to wonder. Does it mean the weather changes were just right? Too subtle to notice? Or do most people stay indoors and watch television?
Just about everything in the weather package changed, but not dramatically. The regional map was enlarged and lightened, accommodating the pictorial four-day forecast. Type is easier to read on the pale green background.
The chart showing the day's hour-by-hour temperatures and precipitation was expanded. If you remember, the highs and lows sometimes ``fell off'' the old chart. And the ultraviolet index was enlarged, just in time for the summer tanning season.
The tides table was extended to include tomorrow's high and low water, and ocean temperature was added. An old favorite, Area Skies, was restored; it gives planetary information.
The nice thing is that some of the changes come directly from you amateur meteorologists out there. I had been collecting letters and calls with weather-page suggestions and, when I heard that changes were in the works, art director Eric Seidman dutifully pored through them.
Not everyone is happy, of course. Joe Fiveash, a Virginia Beach physician, thinks our forecasts are too pessimistic.
``The pictures always look on the worst side of the weather,'' Fiveash said. Last Sunday ``you had clouds, lightning and rain with not one little bit of sun, and it was a beautiful sunny day all day.''
Fiveash thinks that this approach is doing a disservice to the community and its image. But Seidman feels a wet-weather warning is more helpful; that way you can stick an umbrella in your briefcase.
A resident of Melfa, up on the Eastern Shore, had a different critique. On the new regional weather map, only a tiny corner of the Eastern Shore is shown. Where did the rest of it go?
Well, to make room in the map for all the weather information, things got shifted a bit. Cape Charles is still there, but you have to look harder to see it.
Ah well, every silver lining has a cloud. . .
AN INJUSTICE. What's not in the paper is often as much a sore point as what is.
As you can see, Eastern Shore readers don't like their community lopped off maps. Portsmouth readers are quick to sense a slight if an art show or new housing development is overlooked. Miss a School Board or council session in Chesapeake, and you know you'll hear from Carl Burns. He's been calling for decades.
But a particular pique came from Michael Rau, a political consultant and former talk-show host who took the newspaper to task for not covering the investiture of Eileen Olds last weekend as a judge in Chesapeake.
``I was at the investiture ceremony,'' said Rau. ``The City Council chamber was packed to overflowing, there were legislators from both parties there. This is the first African American appointed a judge in Chesapeake, the first woman appointed a judge in Chesapeake, and the paper did not see fit to consider this news.''
How, asked Rau, does this sort of omission fit in with our commitment to public journalism?
The answer is that it should fit right in. Public journalism is directed at grass-roots community participation, but it's also - I'm assured - a back-to-basics approach. And honoring achievers is an affirming part of community life, a sample of good old-fashioned journalism.
Oddly enough, a newspaper photographer was at Judge Olds' investiture. For some reason, the photo never made it into the newspaper last weekend. It ran twice Friday - in the MetroNews section and in the Chesapeake Clipper.
I agree with Rau that the occasion was worth more timely coverage.
WRONG STEREOTYPE. The People column, with its focus on celeb news, should be the least sensitive part of the paper. But we hear about it when something is amiss - like leaving Bruce Willis' name off a caption Monday.
The next day, the column featured an illustration of a Lebanese rooftop restaurant, where customers are hauled up on a wooden bench by a mule-driven pulley system. The picture showed veiled women in plain white robes.
Wrong stereotype, said reader Nada Kawwass of Virginia Beach. Kawwass was raised in Beirut and she says that ``Lebanese wear even more fashionable clothes than Americans.''
The clothing in the drawing, she said, was more typical of Saudi Arabia.
Back to the drawing board. MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net
by CNB