DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997                TAG: 9704110020

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM

                                            LENGTH:   93 lines

REPORT TO READERS DIFFERENT VIEWS ON ROLE OF THE PRESS

``In order for news to be news, it must be believable,'' said Susan Andrus of Norfolk. ``Otherwise it is fiction masquerading as news. When sensationalism or innuendo are included in news reports, I, as a reader, am being manipulated by the editorial process. ''

Andrus came to that conclusion after taking last Sunday's ``You Be the Editor'' exercise in the Commentary section. The quiz asked readers to decide how they would handle 10 sticky journalistic dilemmas that are fairly typical of day-to-day decisions on a newspaper.

Actually, I am reluctant to call it a ``quiz'' because, as I said (and that too was disputed), there were no right or wrong answers, only judgments. Difficult judgments to some, easy ones to others - decisions that pit freedom of the press against possible hurt, offense or unfairness to individuals.

I won't have the final tally until next week's column - by midweek, more than 400 had called or written their responses. But I noticed that many participants had more general observations to make about the state of journalism.

Marylin Copeland of Norfolk was one of them. She wrote, ``Hopefully, the First Amendment is alive and well in this country. Print the truth, no matter how ugly or unsettling it is.''

Copeland had an ally in several other readers. ``The paper's primary obligation is to the general reading public, not the sensibilities of the individual being written about,'' said Jeremiah A. Denton III of Virginia Beach. ``. . . Allowing the reader to judge for himself is what the Gutenberg press was all about. Treat the readers (and, yes, the objects of your stories, too) like adults. Newspapers should always err on the side of publication.''

Like Denton, L.A. Williams of Virginia Beach believes in using all pertinent facts. Why not? ``Regardless of content,'' he said, ``most reports will offend, to some degree, X number of readers.''

But a retired Air Force colonel in Virginia Beach, who didn't leave his name, said he was disgusted with the media. ``They bombastically present issues of personal nature and ruin many lives in the process,'' he added. ``Clean up your act. Protect personal integrity and privacy, for God's sake.''

Ruby Miller of Chesapeake also had that concern. ``I would rather be cautious and as fair as possible to all parties concerned,'' she said.

Cautious and fair are not typical of the press, according to an e-mailer who signed herself only as Margaret. ``The press cares absolutely nothing for individual privacy,'' she wrote, ``and holds no qualms about ruining a life by digging up personal mistakes from many years back, with their only concern being, get the story regardless of how you hurt or ruin a person or family.''

She cited, as an example, the suicide of ``the Navy admiral who was to experience the humiliation by the press due to a long-ago-corrected error.''

The military was not specifically mentioned in Sunday's quiz, but its presence in Pilot stories came up here and there in other readers' responses, too.

``Why must you say in any story involving a sailor, `He/she is a sailor stationed aboard the USS. . . ' '' asked Stephen P. Davis of Virginia Beach. ``You don't say, `He/she works for IBM.' ''

Opinion, not fact, was the main concern of Jean Petersen of Portsmouth. ``Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,'' she said. ``Save editorializing for the editorial page.''

Robert Keith Brown of Virginia Beach wanted to know the purpose of a news report. Is it to ``educate the readers to be able to make informed judgments and decisions. . . ?'' he asked. ``Or just make as much money as possible and be the first on the block with any new tidbit? It is up to you what you choose. . . the high road or the low road.''

George N. Kidd of Virginia Beach reminded us that the media ``have an awesome responsibility to inform, to enlighten, to set a good grammatical example, and to know and show the difference between wickedness and windmills.''

On a lighter note, many readers said they enjoyed the 10 cases but were glad they didn't have to make such judgments on a regular basis.

``It was fun to play editor for a day,'' said Joanne Young of Norfolk. ``I wouldn't hesitate to answer those questions every day, if that were my job - but I'm glad it's your staff's obligation and not mine!''

Psychic slight. Stereotypical portrayals of ethnic, religious and other groups are a common complaint to the public editor. This week, a new one was added to the list.

Kathy Rose, an astrologer from Virginia Beach, was offended by the illustration with Wednesday's front-page story, ``Psychic sues Norfolk over ban on clairvoyants.'' The illustration shows a turbaned woman with tarot cards.

Rose said the negative image implies that all psychics are ``flakes, charlatans and fortunetellers.'' In reality, she said, today's psychics, and their clientele, are ``very mainstream'' and can be intuitively based.

I found Rose's complaint interesting and told her I might include it this week in my column, though I wasn't sure what I'd be writing about. Maybe she did, I quipped.

Later, I kicked myself for my own stereotypical behavior. How easy it is to lapse. . . . MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to

lynn(AT)infi.net

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