THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130049
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
Covering crime can be a punishment when it comes to reader reaction.
If a murder story gets ``good play'' on the front page, we're trying to sell newspapers or destroy the image of a city. If it's on an inside page, we're ``burying'' the story or covering up crime.
Race is a further complication - African-American readers complain when too many front-page stories involve minorities, either as suspects or victims.
That's not to say that readers are wrong and the newspaper is right, or vice-versa. Just that it's tough to create balance out of chaos - or, as crime-team editor Dick Bayer put it, ``to make rational decisions about something as irrational as crimes of violence.''
Some of this debate arose last week, beginning with publication of Dennis Stockton's Death Row diary. Predictably, a number of callers let us know they didn't want to read about Stockton, whose execution is scheduled for next month.
Several said the Sunday story made them sick. Instead of giving the headlines to this prisoner, they said, the victim's family should be interviewed.
They have been, in a story scheduled to run today. But that didn't pacify the critics. For them, a front page dominated by Death Row and the devastation 50 years ago of Hiroshima was a downer, to put it mildly.
The controversy of crime coverage came up again two days later with three fatal shootings in Portsmouth. A story and photo ran Tuesday in the MetroNews section on page B3.
That angered a Portsmouth police officer, who called a reporter at home early that morning to complain that this crime outbreak, involving three black victims, was underplayed. (Race was not mentioned in the story.)
The officer raised questions: Why was there no public outrage? Why didn't the newspaper target the crime rate in Portsmouth? What did the City Council have to say? What kind of solutions could they offer?
Had three white people been killed in one city in one day, he said, it would be all over the front page.
I thought the officer raised some good questions - but not necessarily ones that could be answered within 24 hours of a crime. And certainly race shouldn't determine story play.
But, one day later, the top half of the MetroNews front was dominated by a color photo, story and map of a white teenager found murdered in the Virginia Beach suburbs. The next day, Thursday, the Virginia Beach case again got Metro-front display with the arrest of a suspect.
Yet by Thursday there had been no follow-up story on the Portsmouth murders, not even a brief with the status of the investigation. You had to watch TV news to learn that the son of one of the shooting victims was trying to raise reward money to find his father's killer.
Does the newspaper have different standards for crime in Virginia Beach vs. Portsmouth? For urban vs. suburban murders? For white vs. black victims?
I would like to say no, but the evidence, at least this week, says otherwise.
WWII REVISITED. Readers have generously offered us some history lessons since we began marking the 50th anniversary of the atomic age and the end of World War II.
Considering the complexity of the subject and the amount of space devoted to it, our coverage seems to be on target. But. . .
Last Sunday's Commentary piece, ``Dropping the bomb: Why Truman was right,'' stated that, on Aug. 15, 1945, ``Japan surrendered to the United Nations, ending World War II.''
The United Nations? ``I was under the impression that the UN wasn't even formed until after the end of the war,'' said one reader. ``I don't think that's right.''
It was formed, but it was not the organization that Japan surrendered to, says the curator of the MacArthur Memorial Museum. Japan surrendered to the Allied powers - the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, etc.
In fact, a reproduction of the old Ledger-Dispatch from that fateful day hangs over the desk of military writer Jack Dorsey, and it says that Emperor Hirohito surrendered to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his capacity as Supreme Allied Commander.
Tuesday's A-bomb graphic disturbed a Navy pilot stationed at Oceana Naval Air Station. It showed an F-14 Tomcat ``armed with nuclear-tipped missiles.''
The pilot called to say that F-14s no longer carry nuclear missiles. And he wanted us to know that because he thought Oceana neighbors might get alarmed after seeing the graphic.
And several readers caught us on last Sunday's story about Tom Ferebee, the Enola Gay bombardier and a ``Pfc.'' in the Army Air Corps.
That's ``one rank above a raw recruit,'' bristled an Air Force veteran, adding, ``Bombardiers were officers.''
In fact, the Pilot unknowingly corrected the error a day later in an Associated Press story about Ferebee, describing the Enola Gay bombardier correctly as an Army Air Corps major.
P.S. If you enjoy reading about World War II, you have a treat ahead tomorrow. The paper will include a special section with tales from local people who lived through the war. I got a sneak peek, and it looks like good stuff.
MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net by CNB