THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504080005
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Report to Readers
SOURCE: Lynn Feigenbaum
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Is journalism biting down too hard on the dental profession? Dr. J. Randall Latta thinks so.
A dentist in Manteo, N.C., Latta was most recently dismayed by an editorial cartoon by Bob Englehart of The Hartford (Conn.) Courant. The cartoon, which ran on our op-ed page last weekend, showed a terrified tiger labeled ``Affirmative Action'' strapped into a dental chair with its mouth pried open and dentist Bill Clinton about to operate with chain saw, explosives, knife and pliers.
``As a practicing dentist for 20 years, I am continually disheartened to read references to aspects of dental care used to emphasize something painful and tortuous,'' Latta wrote in an e-mail message. ``In one recent database I found over 50 references to the words `root canal,' 42 of which were used to suggest something very objectionable or unpleasant.''
Latta is fed up with dentists being ``mocked and reviled'' in the media. Hospitals and physicians are glamorized on TV shows, he points out, ``but any reference to a dentist is merely a humorous aside or just plain nonexistent.''
Is the Pilot guilty of dental abuse? I did a computer search of our staff-written stories for the phrase ``root canal'' and found it in four stories this year.
The first was a movie review of ``House Guest,'' which starred stand-up comic Sinbad impersonating a dentist. ``Root canal work is funnier than some of these groaner jokes,'' concluded reviewer Mal Vincent. Not a bad ``punch'' line; certainly more appropriate than putting Affirmative Action in a dental chair.
Two sports stories had the dental reference, one quite legitimate. It was about an Admirals hockey player who got his teeth smashed and needed a root canal - or endodontic therapy, as Latta prefers to call it. (To oversimplify, the procedure involves removing the pulp of a damaged or decayed tooth.)
The other account probably had dentists gnashing their molars. The March 31 story about the Southeastern District softball season said, ``Coaches generally would rather endure a root canal than wax boldly about their team's chances.''
And, finally, columnist Perry Morgan had a biting remark in a recent op-ed commentary. He wrote that ``a majority of Americans might welcome respite from root-canal politics. . . ''
Sure, you could say these references are a stretch. But, short of dousing journalists with laughing gas, I don't know that we'll ever convince them to stop likening dental procedures to medieval torture.
But feel free to join Dr. Latta in his root-canal defense. You can reach him via his e-mail address, JRANDY(AT)aol.com.
SURFING THE NET. My own e-mail correspondence is growing. Most of it comes from local readers but recently I heard from two far-flung ex-Virginians.
Ron Engel lives in a Florida town six miles from the Alabama state line. Ken Marshall is stationed in Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean. And both of them read The Virginian-Pilot.
Strictly speaking, they read Pilot Online, available over the Internet computer network.
``I was `surfing' the net and found the Pilot Online and was glad to see it,'' said Marshall (kmarshal(AT)nctsdg.navy.mil), a Navy man who spent nine years in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. ``It was real fun to be able to look back at Virginia and catch up on things.''
Engel (raengel(AT)gulf.net), a retired Navy captain, also gave it a thumbs up. ``Thanks to what you've done I can still keep in touch with an area still very important to me and my wife,'' he wrote.
0 x 0 (EQ) 0. Factoid of the week: ``Those too poor to pay taxes would get no tax break.''
That enlightening statement appeared in Thursday's front-page graphic on the proposed Republican tax cuts.
Better than the daily index chuckle, to judge from more than a half-dozen calls.
O.J. NUMBERS RACKET. Readers following the newspaper's O.J. Simpson trial updates had an additional mystery to solve.
On Thursday, March 23, the trial info-box on Page A2 was labeled Day 46 - and the next day it was Day 40. It began climbing from there and was Day 46 again last Tuesday.
No, we weren't going back in time. Somewhere along the line, the day count went awry and editors decided to correct it.
Editor Dennis Joyce assures us we're back on track and Day 46 will not surface a third time. MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net. by CNB