THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507210021
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REPORT TO READERS
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
``Four dead. Why?'' was the headline on last Sunday's inside look at the Witchduck Inn murders.
But the ``why'' on some readers' minds was the newspaper's decision to run a graphic photo of the 1994 Virginia Beach crime scene. It showed a body on the floor and another slumped over a bar, separated by a pool of blood.
Fifteen callers objected to the two-day series, about half because of the black-and-white photo. They were not satisfied either by a warning on the front page or by an explanation in editor Cole Campbell's Sunday column.
Campbell wrote that the victims' families had been told about the photo though they were divided on whether it should run. That bothered William E. Holland of Portsmouth.
``If there had been total consensus, OK, but if one family disagreed . . . your paper should have taken that into consideration,'' said Holland. ``You do that for rape victims.''
One caller accused the newspaper of ``taking advantage that these people are not U.S. citizens.'' Another objected because his 6-year-old son saw the photo.
And some readers just didn't want to see such widespread coverage of a crime, particularly after reading all week about the trial.
``I don't buy the newspaper for this,'' said Betty Pfeltz of Virginia Beach. She said she really enjoys her paper, ``but I'm concerned that it will become more tabloidy.''
On the Friday before the series began, Campbell convened editors and reporters to discuss running the photo. He raised three issues to consider in making the decision: public purpose (i.e. Is there one?), taste (Can we minimize the offensive nature?) and the private realm (Does it intrude beyond the public purpose?).
As in any of these newsroom gatherings, there was discussion but no consensus. The fact is, journalists are as divided on issues as any readers. Basically, those in favor argued that the photo was needed to ``tell the news'' - in this case, to show the horror of the murders. Those against worried about families - the victims' and their own.
In the end, the photo ran smaller than originally planned and the warning ran on A1 (``This story contains explicit descriptions and a crime scene photograph, on A10, that may unsettle some readers while enlightening others.'')
Like reader Holland, I would have preferred consensus from the victims' families but at least it wasn't going to take them by surprise, a problem that has come up with other crime retrospectives.
Also, I thought the series was handled well. The presentation was not ``tabloidy'' (unlike some promotions for the series) and the stories were a fascinating look at behind-the-scenes policework.
In fact, Kathy Terrana of Virginia Beach said she and her husband thought the Witchduck Inn murder series had ``some of the most compelling writing that we've ever read in this newspaper.'' And, she added, ``we think the photos that you published were necessary for the story.''
CEMENT OR CONCRETE? Another story that got readers calling in was Wednesday's account of the collapse of the Norfolk jail annex.
No, there were no complaints that the photos or text were too graphic. It seems that the stories, headlines and graphics erred, over and over, in referring to ``cement'' when we really meant ``concrete.''
One of more than a dozen folks who set us straight was George C. Malamos, a structural engineer for the Navy. ``I know that some people interchange the two words,'' he e-mailed, ``but there are distinct differences.''
Simply put, said Malamos and others, cement is a dry gray powder, calcium silicate, which you buy in bags. Mixed with water and sand, cement becomes mortar. Mixed with water, sand and stones (gravel or aggregate), it becomes concrete.
But wait - Webster's New World Dictionary defines concrete as ``a hard compact building material formed when a mixture of cement, sand, gravel and water dries.'' So what do you call the wet stuff?
Wet or plastic concrete, says Malamos, but not wet cement.
Malamos said the media make this mistake all the time, like during the California earthquake. But the confusion dates back further than that, and several callers treated us to Cement Trivia.
John Relyea, a retired field office manager with a construction firm, remembers an old song called ``Cement Mixer.'' The refrain, something like ``putty putty,'' was supposed to sound like the slop of wet cement. Sorry, I mean wet concrete. . . .
And then there were the Beverly Hillbillies, who called their pool a ``cee-ment pond.'' In fact, Frank Frye of Chesapeake warns us that you just might be branded a redneck if you call concrete ``cement.''
``You ARE a redneck,'' he concluded, ``if you call it cee-ment.'' MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net by CNB