THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406180010
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
DATELINE: 940619 LENGTH: Medium
There's something so humbling about this public confessional. ``Hey, Mabel, look what those guys did today.''
{REST} Never mind that newspapers are one of the few businesses to put their mistakes in print; it's an opportunity to take us down a few pegs.
I write most of our corrections - not the most fun job I've ever had, but I value the chance to set the record straight.
One thing, though - they don't give you a sense of the anger, frustration or amusement of the reader (or journalist) who spots the error. Here are a few recent examples.
A prince of whales. In a wire story Thursday, we described the giant whale pictured leaping across the bottom of the front page as a ``beast of prey.'' The story was about gray whales being removed from the Endangered Species List.
The beastly description (provided by the Los Angeles Times) bemused one reader. ``I think your writer probably saw `Jaws' in the last couple of months and got mixed up,'' he said.
Our caller had a point. The mild-mannered gray whale is a pussycat - a toothless mammal that forages in the muddy ocean bottom for its diet of tubeworms, isopods and other insectlike animals, said marine scientist John Keinath of the Virginia Institute for Marine Science.
The ``beast'' even likes to be petted, though that's illegal in the United States - for the whale's protection, not ours.
The turtle and the snare. While we're at sea, the rescue of a giant loggerhead turtle got us in hot water this week with a commercial fisherman from Portsmouth.
J.A. ``Tony'' Penello took us to task for reporting that the turtle was rescued from a fishing net. It was stuck in a scallop dredge, he said.
Penello explained that, under National Marine Fisheries regulations, commercial fishermen put turtle excluders in their nets to prevent snaring the endangered reptile.
``We're under enough pressure from those people,'' he said, referring to federal authorities. ``I don't like getting blamed for something we didn't do.''
VIMS scientist Keinath was in on the turtle rescue and says it was indeed caught in a scallop dredge, not a net. He described the dredge as an iron contraption, about 15 feet wide and weighing a ton, which sifts out scallops in the sediment.
Doesn't sound like a net to me.
A thought for your pennies. Here's another reader challenge. Nathaniel Dyer of Virginia Beach read Thursday's story about efforts to make people stop hoarding pennies, ``the copper coins.''
``If they were still made of copper, I'd sell them for more than their worth rather than hoard them,'' said Dyer.
Well, it's not strictly wrong to call pennies ``copper coins'' (they are copper colored) but it's not strictly right either. Pennies are currently made of copper-plated zinc.
According to the 1994 Guide Book of United States Coins, pennies made from 1959 to 1982 were 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc or tin and zinc. Since 1982, it's been the other way around - they're 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper.
A lesson in medical writing. And, finally, here's a topic that's not for the squeamish - the case of the flesh-destroying bacteria. It made front-page news June 10, with a follow-up story the next day.
A doctor and an ODU oceanographer were among the readers who took us to task for misusing and misspelling medical jargon in the stories.
So, for the record - and with help from pharmacist Michelle Helm of Chesapeake: (1) A bacterium is not the same as a virus; (2) The bacterium that causes the disease is Streptococcus pyogenes (some stories say merely Strep A); (3) The disease itself is called necrotizing fasciitis. (4) Destruction of the flesh is not caused by the bacteria but by the body's response to a toxin.
Now you know, though Dr. Samuel T. Selden warns against sensationalizing. The disease is not new, said the Chesapeake dermatologist, and stories like these can spread fear.
His advice: Get the facts straight or drop the subject. by CNB