DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997                 TAG: 9704040022

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

REPORT TO READERS APRIL FOOL-ISHNESS DELIGHTS, DISMAYS

Hey, didja hear the one about the cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach merging? If you didn't, you missed some April Fools' Day fun (or folly?) in The Pilot.

I'm talking, of course, about Tuesday's Daily Break front. At first glance, it looked fairly normal - except for the arrow pointing down to an ``April Fool's Front Page.'' Turn the section upside down, and - folded - the feature front looked just like the front page of the A section.

Below an authentic Virginian-Pilot masthead, the bold banner headline said: ``NORFOLK, VA BEACH TO MERGE,'' with a smaller headline, ``Other Hampton Roads cities invited to join.''

It didn't take long for readers to catch on that it was a joke. More than four dozen called, e-mailed and wrote their reactions. As always, their comments ran the gamut - from ``Thanks for the laugh this morning'' to demands that the Pilot apologize for the ``sick joke,'' plus a few expressions of dismay that the story wasn't true.

``Well, you got me!'' said Mark L. Goldstein of Virginia Beach. ``The April Fools' article regarding the merger of Norfolk and Virginia Beach was wishful thinking. Reading the article, I felt the spirit of optimism and cooperation. Not realizing the faux nature, I praised these significant steps toward regionalism. Oh well. The joke's on us, in more ways than one.''

The joke was just fine by more than two-thirds of the readers who got in touch with us. And that's a novelty for the public editor's office, which generally hears more complaints than compliments on any given issue.

``Your April Fools' headline was a hoot!'' said one woman. ``I brought the paper in, threw it down on kitchen table in front of my husband and I thought he'd fall out of his chair. We enjoy things like that. Do it again!''

Not everyone wants an encore. To Sara Schapiro of Norfolk, the April Fools' joke was ``childish'' and an ``insult to your subscribers.'' And Chester Leibrand suggested that, in the future, we stick to real news and ``quit trying to be funny.''

But the merger story gave William Foss of Virginia Beach ``all kinds of conniptions, caused me to spill my morning coffee and, best of all, it caused me to have the biggest belly laugh I've had in years. . . And by the way, the weather forecast was great, too.''

The weather report was, ``Sunny today and gradually becoming darker later tonight.'' Can't beat that for accuracy!

Early-morning risers couldn't believe their eyes. In Virginia Beach, Linda Zirkle got a jolt when she opened up her paper to the merger headline at 5:30 a.m. It wasn't until she got to the proposed names for the merged city - ``Vifolk Beach'' and ``Norginia Beach'' - that the light shone. ``Very funny, guys!'' she said.

Funny, perhaps, but apparently not all the content was off the wall. Cody W. Oliver pointed out a glitch in a second spoof article, the one that had scientists announcing that ``pigs can fly'' and the Earth's core is cooling. ``Problem is,'' said Oliver, ``the core of the Earth really is cooling!''

Then there were the readers who defended us from what they anticipated would be a negative backlash.

``No doubt you will receive much mail and many telephonic communications castigating the Pilot for this stunt,'' said Mike Carroll. ``To them I say: `Get a life!' Humor in the world doesn't hurt; today, especially, being a good day for it. . . ''

Carroll, who signed his e-mail message from ``Norginia Beach,'' wanted to know who deserved the credit for ``this bit of tomfoolery.'' Well, it was Daily Break editor Eric Sundquist.

Sundquist said he got the idea from the Palm Beach Post, which last year ran an upside-down April Fools' article on its feature front about UFOs on the moon. Plotting with page designer Sam Hundley and staff artist Bob Voros, Sundquist looked for a story that was plausible enough to make readers do a doubletake. They ruled out stories that might scare people, a la Orson Welles' Martian invasion or the ``exploding Mount Trashmore'' prank that shook up local radio fans some years ago.

If the April Fools' joke did cause some reader doubletakes - it's not every day that the Pilot indulges in such large-scale mirth - it also created a bit of havoc among newspaper carriers. Not clued into the joke, they found themselves looking at two different front pages. As a result, some subscribers pulling the newspaper out of their plastic bag got the joke headline on top of the news sections.

One of those subscribers was Steve Kurz, who didn't like the jab at regionalism. ``To use this particular subject as a joke only reinforces the problem,'' said Kurz. ``It is an insult to both the Beach and to Norfolk. . . ''

My reaction? As a reader taken completely by surprise, I have to admit getting a laugh from the stories. (I also enjoyed the ``Great Comics Switcheroonie,'' which had cartoonists swapping strips on April 1.) However, I might have been a detractor if the page hadn't been so clearly marked as an April Fools' front page - and printed upside down, too.

Still, I was surprised to get such a spontaneous outburst of shared laughter. Obviously, we all need more fun in our daily lives. And while I wouldn't recommend overdoing the April Fools' spoofery, maybe it's a sign that journalism needs to lighten up at times.

You be the editor. No, this is not another April Fools' joke. You can be an editor, at least for a few minutes, if you turn to the back page of this section.

The page has 10 journalistic decisions that are similar to the types of problems editors face every day. Take the ``quiz'' and send me your responses for a future column.

This type of reader survey is a favorite of ombudsmen, and was a regular feature years ago by former Pilot public editor Kerry Sipe.

With all the discussion lately on media ethics, it seemed like a good time to bring it back.

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