THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606210037
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: 118 lines
Readers have been full of questions lately - some that stumped me. For help, I turned to ``specialists'' at The Pilot.
A few of the queries are paraphrased but, mostly, they echo what I heard from one or more readers.
I'm wondering why the news media, and The Virginian-Pilot in particular, are talking about all these black churches on the front page yet, hidden on a back page, you see that white churches are also being burned. Why don't you quit stirring up racial tensions?
Most of the national attention has been on black churches, which have been the growing target of arson fires in the past 18 months.
In fact, according to our ``hidden'' (Page A14) story last Sunday, 34 black churches were burned during that period, compared to about two dozen predominantly white ones. By Thursday, the number of black churches had risen to 38.
If you go back to 1990, the numbers tell a slightly different story. According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. Justice Department has probed burning or vandalism at 216 places of worship - 93 at black churches. However, the L.A. Times also notes that, statistically, white churches far outnumber black churches.
``Any time you lose a house of faith, it's a loss for everyone,'' said Steve Austin, a wire editor for The Pilot. He doesn't see any cover-up of the numbers.
From the start, says Austin, President Clinton and others have been asked: Is there a conspiracy to destroy black churches? Or are these random acts? To some degree, Austin thinks the press has been caught up in the conspiracy frenzy.
Some cases, he noted, have already been discounted - like the fire that turned out to be electrical. And then there's the copycat factor.
Obviously, the press needs to exercise caution here as it does on any story that creates dissension and emotional response. But neither can it ignore these acts of violence.
Why do you run so many Wall Street Journal articles in your Business News section? Last Sunday, there were four. As a reader of both The Journal and The Pilot, I do not expect to see so many.
Last Sunday's section was a fluke - two of the Journal stories were timely pieces for Father's Day. Business editor Joe Coccaro and his team usually glean from more than a half-dozen news sources to supplement their local business report.
These include three wire services specializing in financial coverage: The Dow Jones News Service (which supplies the Journal articles), Bloomberg Business News and the Knight-Ridder-Tribune (KRT) Business News Wire.
Bloomberg's strength is its speed, says Coccaro, while KRT's is its wide range of fare, from newspapers of all sizes around the country.
Still, The Wall Street Journal offers the best financial and investment coverage in the country, said Coccaro. ``They go beyond traditional and expected stories that everybody is writing.''
I love animals, but I think PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is a very dangerous organization and I was surprised the paper gives it so much space. Does this mean The Pilot is endorsing the group?
No. That answer is from Diane Tennant, the reporter who does most of our PETA coverage, and editor Esther Diskin.
With the group moving its headquarters here, their goal, they said, is to ``give people advance information about the philosophy, finances and actions of this group before it arrives, so that once PETA starts acting in our community, Hampton Roads residents won't say, `Who is this?' `Why didn't the newspaper tell us about this group?' ''
They point out that it's a big organization (budget: $12 million, 500,000 supporters); it has impacted the fur industry, the cosmetics industry and biomedical research. And, they added, ``it hopes to do the same to animal-based farming and to the animal-derived food industry, both of which are also in our back yard - Smithfield Foods, Perdue, commercial and recreational fishing.''
Tennant and Diskin said they intend to give fair and accurate coverage to the topic, though they do not plan to cover ``every little street-corner protest.''
Every time you guys write about a Navy offense, you bring up Tailhook. Some mistakes are pure stupidity. . . . Do you have an obligation to include Tailhook every time the Navy does something?
There's no obligation, but Tailhook became a benchmark for the Navy, said longtime military writer Jack Dorsey.
``Like it or not,'' he added, ``the 1991 Tailhook convention in Las Vegas will be used to measure the service's zero tolerance for sex harassment and abuse for a long, long time.
``No, the reference to Tailhook doesn't have to be used `every time the Navy does something,' as you said. Nor is it. But there is still great interest in the Navy's behavior, as well as that of the other service branches, and when we feel it is appropriate to use such a reference, we will.''
I understand why you've decreased the borders on the papers, trying to save paper, but it's getting really tiring having the rollers mess up the print. It breaks up my concentration. Are you doing anything about this?
This is a fairly common newspaper problem these days, says Curtis Spady, night press manager for The Pilot.
When newsprint (paper) prices started soaring, one solution for many newspapers was to reduce slightly the ``web width'' - that is, the width of the page. In late April, The Pilot began that process, and our page width went from 55 3/4 inches to 55 inches.
That space was taken, almost invisibly, out of the white margin down the sides of the page. But ``trolley marks'' (black smudges) and ``nip marks'' (small dents) that used to fall on the margin now sometimes encroach on the type. Both of these come from equipment used in guiding the paper into folding machinery.
``We have to give an extra effort into reducing these marks,'' said Spady. ``We'll never get rid of them completely, but we can reduce them to where they're not so bothersome.''
I believe you made a mistake on the front page on Sunday, June 9. The headline says, ``Hampton Roads' oldest active jurist dies.'' Shouldn't that be ``active judge''?
This question comes up frequently - but a ``jurist'' is a judge, not a juror.
Why don't we just use the more commonly understood word? Copy editor Heather Dawson explains that headline writers ``want to be creative, and as in the story on Judge Richard Kellam, there are often a lot of different elements - quotes, additional headlines, etc. - so we need to use words that are different.
``We can't use `judge' six times on one page. . . . There's also the matter of tone - `jurist' seemed to fit that story.'' MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net by CNB