THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607270010
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REPORT TO READERS
SOURCE: Lynn Feigenbaum
LENGTH: 93 lines
Last weekend, Charlise Lyles wrote her usual Saturday column for the MetroNews section. She mentioned, almost offhandedly, that it would be her last column for The Pilot.
Lyles was Jacqueline Carson's favorite columnist and this perfunctory farewell puzzled Carson.
``There's no explanation of why, where or when,'' she said.
Well, the why, where and when is that Lyles is moving to the Dayton Daily News in Ohio, where she'll cover religion and race relations. And Lyles assures readers she wasn't trying to sneak out on them.
``I tried really hard to capture the community and not talk about myself,'' she said.
Sneak or not, Lyles is moving on to another job, another city - in fact, one that is three hours away from her family in Cleveland.
It's been a longer haul from Norfolk, where Lyles has spent the past 12 years, most of them at The Pilot. She has covered Chesapeake City Hall and police, Norfolk urban affairs, written a book of memoirs (Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?) and served a stint as public editor.
More recently, she's written Real Life section features and bravely penned her twice-weekly column. (I tend to think that all columnists are brave.)
It was time to move on, says Lyles. But she doesn't plan to wipe away her years in this area.
``One of the things that has made living here so fascinating, as a Midwesterner, is that . . the terrain is so diverse,'' said Lyles, ``and Hampton Roads is sort of a microcosm - you have ocean here, rural farms, new suburbs and urban areas. Each breeds its own type of personality and sense of community, and I enjoyed getting to know the people who have sprung from each of those terrains.''
Lyles feels she's absorbed something from all this, ``from farmers in Chesapeake to people in Larchmont and Norfolk, and the mystic crowd at the Oceanfront.'' You may meet some of these familiar figures one day - she plans to write short stories, fictional, about this area.
Rosemary Goudreau, a deputy managing editor at The Pilot, wrote this testament to Lyles when announcing her departure to the staff:
``Charlise gave voice to the disenfranchised, to women, to people of color, to regular folks doing ordinary but interesting things. She shared of herself and her sister-girlfriends. She made us laugh, made some angry, but made us pay attention to complex holes wearing in our community cloth.''
But not everybody from this crazy-quilt terrain is unhappy to see Lyles go. I've heard from readers who expressed relief.
``I think a column that addresses African-American issues is certainly appropriate for the paper,'' said one man, but he didn't like her ``in-your-face'' style and ``sister-girlfriend monotony.''
This caller opted to stay anonymous - a luxury that columnists don't have, unless they're writing books about fictitious presidential candidates. But he found it ironic that her last column, a touching piece about a young man who became an Eagle Scout, ``is the kind of stuff that I would have expected in this kind of venue'' - very touching, very positive.
Lyles said she learned to cope with reader criticism and wrath - ``it's a fact of life when you're a columnist.'' She developed a thick skin, she said, during her year as public editor. (I can relate to that!)
She also found one of the ``greatest rewards'' of writing her columns was in talking and exchanging views with readers who disagreed with her.
``The mission of a decent columnist is to provoke thought,'' she said, ``and if you're not going to provoke thought or debate, you're not worth the word processor you're writing on.''
Reader Linda Armstrong regrets Lyles' departure.
``As a columnist, she had an important voice,'' said Armstrong, ``and I think the whole community is going to be lacking in losing her.''
Olympic mettle. As I said, columnists are brave souls. And sports writer Tom Robinson is getting his mettle tested.
Robinson is in Atlanta covering the Olympics, a very red, white and blue event. And several readers have not taken kindly to his commentary.
On Thursday, his column was the lead story on the Sports front, with a headline reading, ``Needless risk dulls gold.'' It portrayed women's gymnastics as a ``monstrous, pressure-packed, brutal business'' and injured gymnast Kerri Strug as the sport's latest victim.
Reader Tom Hirsch took Robinson to task for ``not allowing the facts to get in the way of a good column.'' He argued that, even without her heroic second jump, Strug was too badly injured to go on. Besides, he said, she wouldn't have qualified for the individual finals.
``We have one of the most courageous, heroic stories of the Olympics,'' said Hirsch, ``and all this chest-thumping journalism has sullied this event.
There have been other Olympic grumbles. Some readers didn't like the front-page photo, above The Pilot's masthead Monday, of a hand-standing gymnast doing the split. ``Obscene looking,'' said one woman.
Others blamed the Olympics for the missing baseball scores in the Friday, July 19, Sports section. That was a production problem - the page with the updated scores got ``stuck.''
There are still seven days left of Olympics. Too early to score.
MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net by CNB