THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601130003
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
It's always bizarre when a newspaper crisis makes or shapes the news, but that's what happened here last weekend.
In case you were on another planet - or, like me, on vacation in freezing Florida - the problem was not simply the Blizzard of '96. Sure, there were the usual hazards of delivering newspapers on snow-packed, icy roads.
But who could imagine those other events of last Sunday. . .
``What do you mean, downtown Norfolk blew up?'' I asked my assistant, Deborah Alexander, when I called in from the land of frostbitten palm trees. It had been a brisk thirtysomething degrees there, so I thought that maybe my brain cells had frozen.
Debbie patiently explained about the underground power-line explosions that had left much of Norfolk, including The Virginian-Pilot building on Brambleton Avenue, without any electricity Sunday afternoon and evening.
She told me how Monday's newspaper, a condensed version, was printed in part at the Beacon building in Virginia Beach and at The Daily Press in Newport News. And that she was getting lots of calls from readers applauding our efforts.
On my return, the Monday paper was the first one I saw - it was peeking out from an icy mound of snow in my front yard. I had stopped my papers for a week, but that one came anyway. I'll let it go this time. After all, the power outage did affect those reports that tell carriers when people are leaving for or returning from vacation.
On a brighter note, more than a dozen satisfied readers had called in. Not one of them complained that their Monday Pilot did not include the MetroNews section. Or that SportsNews, without its usual color photos, was folded into one section with The Daily Break.
Even our grammar mavens refrained from pointing out the glaring typos in a story explaining the cause of the blast.
On the contrary, these readers were simply surprised and grateful to find a newspaper on their doorstep.
``I'm just calling to give you all high marks for getting the paper out when you didn't have any power and the roads were so terrible,'' said Grace Tazewell of Norfolk. ``I just think you did a real, real good job on getting it out.''
Elizabeth Booth was even more impressed - shocked, actually - not just that the paper came out but ``that it was delivered here to our house, and we're in the boonies in Smithfield. . . . We didn't get our mail for two days but there was the newspaper.''
It was ``good newspapering,'' said another caller, and that's not so easy in this electronic age. As a follow-up story explained Tuesday, getting out the Monday paper involved lugging computers and photo equipment from the darkened Norfolk building to the Beach bureau; and driving up to Newport News and back, on icy roads, to produce the Sports pages.
Bernadette Chrysler of Chesapeake said it was ``real nice'' that The Daily Press in Newport News ``pitched in to help you print the paper.'' I'll second that. And obviously other editors did, too, because the Pilot ran a full-page ad Tuesday with a ``special thanks to the Daily Press for their help in putting together Monday's Virginian-Pilot.''
And I'll add a special thanks to readers who took the time to call and say thanks!
MICRO-DOTTY IDEA. Another reader who put in a good word about Monday's paper was B.H. (Pat) Bridges Jr. of Virginia Beach. Funny thing is, he liked it better than the usual daily product.
Why? Because ``even under those handicaps,'' he said, it was easier to read.
``Maybe the snowstorm and electrical power outage on Sunday was a blessing,'' added Bridges, who delivered the paper decades ago. Bridges had a point - Monday's makeshift typeface was larger than usual and, especially on the front page, there was more space between the lines.
Probably the main complaint I'm hearing these days is that, for older readers, the newspaper is tough going. The main sour note recently was the reduction of typesize in the crossword clues, horoscope and bridge column. That was remedied on Monday but some readers still find the print too fine. Ditto for the stock market quotations and TV listings.
David E. Pierce of Chesapeake gave us a taste of our own medicine by writing a letter to the editor in stock-quote type size. In other words, tiny and unreadable. ``If paper is so dear,'' he wrote, ``why not just have the carriers deliver micro dots?''
Another reader, from the Eastern Shore, asked: Why are you picking on the older, ``eyesight-challenged'' reader?
It's a valid question. Maybe we'll find a solution when our baby-boomer editors join the bifocal club. . .
MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net
by CNB