THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 10, 1994 TAG: 9412100050
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
OLIVER NORTH LOST, but denizens of Rush rooms around Hampton Roads can find solace in one of the conservative movement's favorite newspapers.
On Nov. 13, The Washington Times began appearing on area racks. Whether the Unification Church-owned paper, often cited as a voice of fairness and sound judgment by readers who align themselves with the Republican party, is responding to what it perceives as a groundswell in its direction is hard to say. But there's no denying that the time is, er, right.
Until recently, potential readers here have had to settle for listening to ``The G. Gordon Liddy Show'' for their fix of the Times. (A brief attempt by the Times at widening its distribution area to include this area failed earlier in the decade.)
Liddy, whose show is heard at 10 a.m. weekdays on WTAR, devotes the lion's share of his hour-long ``Review and Comment on the News'' segment to reading aloud items from the Times, which he proclaims ``Washington's premier newspaper.'' The convicted Watergate burglar refuses to pronounce the name of his old nemesis, The Washington Post, on-air. Instead, he opts for a bleep.
``The liberal media is pro-abortion, and one of the ways they distort the news is hiding the news,'' he said during one show last week.
Among the Times' favorite targets are the Clinton associates involved in the Whitewater investigation. One or the other provides fodder for an A1 piece seemingly every day - often on developments deemed unworthy of such coverage by the Post.
But while the Times' news coverage is often colored by its own ideology, it's not easily pigeonholed. Its features pages are well-respected, and black cartoonist Barbara Brandon's ``Where I'm Coming From'' is a Saturday fixture. Last weekend, Brandon's characters discussed institutional racism in a manner that the Times' op-ed pages would no doubt comdemn.
Ken Pimtzner, Virginia division manager of Times circulation, says the daily allotment of copies for Norfolk and surrounding areas ``varies a little bit,'' but is in the neighborhood of 500 to 1,000.
Of sales figures, he said that ``each week so far, it's risen 25 percent.''
Pimtzner attributes the Times' appeal to its status as ``one of the most conservative products you can buy. And the people expressed their opinions at the ballot box. They're ready for a conservative voice.''
``The free publicity every day'' on the Liddy and Limbaugh programs, he said, ``has led people to find out for themselves.''
Mike Shutty, co-owner of Suburban News, a Wards Corner newsstand, agrees that the talk-show hosts have fed demand for the Times.
``We've been trying to get it for a while,'' said Shutty. He characterizes sales as ``not bad. It takes a little while to let people know the paper's available.''
Suburban News has been receiving 15 copies of the Times each day. Typically, ``four or five'' sell, compared with about 15 Posts. On Sunday, the Times' numbers remain the same, while the Post moves about 55 at the location.
``I'm sure sales will go up a couple more,'' Shutty said. ``It's not a wide-range paper, it's a thin little paper. It's gonna appeal to a certain group of people who want a conservative paper. But as far as wide sales, I don't think it'll ever sell what we see with the more established papers like The Washington Post and The Virginian-Pilot.''
Its fans are dedicated, though.
``I have one guy who comes in and asks me to save them,'' said Teresa Holliday, magazine supervisor for Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Virginia Beach. ``I hold them for the whole week, and he comes in.'' by CNB