THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997 TAG: 9701040023
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: 82 lines
A fire that destroyed part of a Virginia Beach apartment complex last Sunday was The Pilot's lead story two days in a row this week. The bad news: 35 people were left homeless - in the winter, over the holidays. The good news: No one was killed or injured.
It was also an example of good old-fashioned reporting, first on Monday with coverage of the blaze and again Tuesday, with a follow-up story revealing that fireplace ashes placed in a plastic bucket had set off the blaze. I even learned a few things I didn't know from a mini-sidebar on fireplace safety. On both days there were dramatic photos of the damage.
Two lapses, however, caused a few reader sparks to fly. The first occurred Monday, with the banner headline - ``35 homeless in apartment fire.'' When I got my paper that morning, my first thought was, ``Omigod, 35 homeless people were in a fire.'' Not a logical way to read that headline, perhaps, but the wording was ambiguous. And three readers who called in with the same complaint made me realize that I wasn't the only one misinterpreting it.
The second problem was in Tuesday's story, which noted - in the second paragraph - that fire investigators ``found the bucket's melted bottom on a charred third-floor balcony, where the fire started. Neighbors said the man who lived there was a police officer who had left for the holidays.''
Well, neighbors were wrong. It was not the police officer's apartment. And the unnamed officer was plenty unhappy Tuesday morning when he learned that neighbors had branded him the culprit.
We could have run the usual correction. But Marc Davis, who edited the story, and Mike Mather, one of the reporters, went a step better. Mather interviewed the policeman, and his story ran on page A1 the next day. In it, Todd Coleman explained what it was like to return to ``cold stares'' because neighbors and a friend wrongly identified his apartment, and fire officials ``did not dispute'' the account. Not to mention that he and his wife lost all their possessions.
It was a very human dimension to a fire story. And an appropriate way to handle the initial misreport.
About those corrections. As you can see, there is no set formula for ``setting the record straight.'' Sometimes the problem is clear-cut - wrong phone number, name misspelled, source error. Or the wrong prime-time TV grid, as in Thursday's Daily Break. Lots of readers grumbled, rightfully, about that one.
But occasionally we can't pin down what is ``right'' or ``wrong.'' There's a lot of in-between stuff that reporter and source never quite agree on.
A person may complain of being misquoted - and a reporter will pull out verbatim notes, backing up the quote. Other times, it could be a difference of opinion on context or what was left out of an interview.
In cases like that, where there's no consensus, we may encourage complainants to write a letter to the editor.
Corrections are important (and I like to put in an occasional plug for them) because reporters and editors using our computer library files will call up the original story and find the correction right on top of it.
The pres has a responsibility to acknowledge when it's gone astray. Considering the volume of material that goes in a newspaper every day, it's amazing more fixes aren't necessary.
Drug-ring fallout. Last Sunday's front-page story was ``The Rise & Fall of a Kingpin,'' about a local man accused of heading up a marijuana gang.
No one challenged this fascinating look at how a group of Norfolk friends evolved into a marijuana ring. But one reader questioned running the large, front-page photo featuring two gun-toting figures - the white kingpin, Les Evans, and a black associate, Douglas Barfield.
The caller noted that Barfield got less time than anyone else in the predominantly white drug gang. Why did he need to dominate the front-page photo? Don't we see enough African Americans involved in crime on the pages of our newspapers and on television?
And the office manager of the auto body shop where a key arrest was made was unhappy that the firm got such prominent mention once again. She noted that the company has spent a lot in advertising trying to ``correct an image they don't deserve.''
Did the body shop have to be named in the very first graph? Maybe not. But names and places are the reality base of journalism.
As for the photo, it did put part of the spotlight on Barfield but reporter Lynn Waltz said he was a major player in the ring, and got less time because of his cooperation. You might say that the photo was was a spontaneous ``Pulp Fiction-esque'' moment between the two men.
It's a reminder that real life can be stranger than fiction.