THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507230033
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
SOURCE: COLE CAMPBELL, EDITOR
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
My first work published in a daily newspaper was a letter to the editor of the campus paper, in which I boldly (for a freshman) lacerated the student body president for a pronouncement that offended my sensibilities.
Twenty-four years later, I can't recall the president's offense - only my satisfaction at launching my missive into the void, delighted to see it in print but otherwise oblivious to whether it affected its target.
It is still hard at times to tell if a bit of writing hits the target, so I was pleased last week to receive a letter from Richard C. Boutwell, who lives on 52nd Street in Norfolk and oversees training programs for Newport News Shipbuilding.
Boutwell's letter comments on our recent initiatives to find new ways to connect citizens, the newspaper and the community. I liked the letter in part because it says nice things about the paper, but more importantly because it expresses exactly some of the reasons behind what we're trying to do.
``. . . the community advocacy direction your (our) newspaper is taking is, to my way of thinking, THE single most significant improvement to the quality of life in Hampton Roads in years,'' Boutwell writes. ``Issues will come and go, and crisis after crisis will grab our short-term attention, but putting a critical-thinking, solutions-focused, consensus-building process in place, at the infrastructure level, is without doubt the most lasting way to bring about enlightened change.
``I've followed your comments in the Editor's Notebook and share in your belief in the process of empowerment and consensus building as one way to improve the quality of life for all our citizens. Your most recent effort to focus on issues `before the election rhetoric' is as refreshing as it is practical.
``Your attempt to get us to walk the talk and live democracy is unsettling. Many of us had become intellectually disenfranchised because of the partisanship of our elected officials, so that giving up and focusing on personal issues were the only recourse. The old saying, `Worry about the things you can do something about and forget the rest' has relegated many of us to focus exclusively on our own interests, sometimes at the expense of the community's interest.
``You and your staff have, through the selection of articles and the thoughtful journalism, renewed my hope that: (1) we the people are collectively better for the community than a small influential special interest; (2) we the people are prepared to give resources to the community in spite of hard times and uncertainty, providing there is hope for results, and finally, (3) we the people have a deep and heartfelt belief that `the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer' is wrong, and no cynical politician using the ruse of budgetary efficiency will ever convince us that poor people should take the blame for being poor.''
Our reporting on the impact of government cost-cutting is aimed at making everyone aware of how public policy decisions affect people. We don't intend it as an attack on politicians or political programs - we leave that to our colleagues on the editorial page.
But Boutwell correctly identifies key concepts behind our initiatives to bring citizens more directly into political processes by listening more carefully to you, by encouraging you to deliberate about policy questions in conversations with friends and family, by framing our upcoming General Assembly coverage in the issues that concern citizens.
We do think that perpetually leaping from crisis to crisis - by political figures and/or by the press - has undermined our collective ability to deal with long-term challenges facing our communities.
We do think public discussion and debate is enriched by critical thinking, a focus on solutions and efforts to build consensus.
We do think that focusing on extremes - by political figures or the press - pushes many people to give up on public life and devote themselves more to private matters.
We do think that people will give more time, talent, energy and resources to advance the public good, ``providing there is hope for results.''
Boutwell, 57, who has a doctorate in educational psychology, moved to Norfolk in 1981. He and his wife, Janet, have five children, all of whom have spent some or all of their childhood years here. The Boutwells have a stake in this community.
Our job, as journalists, is to help them defend that stake.
Boutwell begins his letter by describing it as his first correspondence with a newspaper editor. He has had that universal impulse to fire off other letters, but ``the time was never right and the heat of emotion passed and the letters were never written. But not this time.''
Thanks for the exception. Your letter hit its target. by CNB