THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 3, 1995 TAG: 9509020005
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
I don't usually side with Republicans, but, then, I don't usually side with Democrats, either. Strictly neutral, this public editor - just like all journalists.
(I probably should check on that. Is neutrality still fashionable?)
Party politics came up this week because of a Daily Break story Monday on ``The Brothers Grin'' - an engaging profile of Democratic state Sens. Richard and Clancy Holland, both facing election challenges in November.
The story left two Republicans steaming. One was Rob Catron, campaign manager for Ed Schrock, Clancy Holland's GOP opponent. The other was Ethel Henry, chairman of the Suffolk Republican Party.
The timing was their main gripe. Labor Day weekend is the unofficial start of the election season, and Henry felt this was too close for comfort. In fact, they both saw the feature as free advertising for the Holland brothers and inappropriate at any time in an election period.
It also irked Catron that the story ran on the very day that Clancy Holland began his TV campaign, something no one on the staff seems to have even known about.
Ironically, the story was written early this summer, even before Schrock won the Republican primary for the 7th District seat in Virginia Beach. In fact, it ran May 21 in The Roanoke Times, The Virginian-Pilot's sister paper.
Reporter Robert Little, who writes for both papers, says Pilot editors delayed running his story because they wanted a new photo of the Hollands. Three months is a long time to wait for a photo. The story finally made it into The Pilot a week before Labor Day.
The Holland brothers were probably overdue for a profile - as Little points out, together they represent 65 years of political history in this area. But Ethel Henry believes that if we run an election-time spotlight on these two candidates, with its ``wonderful history of their family,'' then we ought to do the same for their challengers.
``The opponents aren't boring people,'' she said, ``they have families, too.''
She has a point, though I'm not convinced equal time really works in the political arena - somehow, the scales always tilt one way or the other. But I'd vote for seeing more profiles of this kind, rather than fewer. The more we can learn about our candidates, the better.
As for the timing, that's harder to defend. Had the story run back in May or June, no problem. But looking at that big photo of the brothers, smiling and convivial, and reading about their dedicated if colorful ties to the region - you can see where it would stir ill feeling in any opposition camp.
DOONESBURY: A MOUTHFUL. In my two-plus years as public editor, and before that as features editor, I fielded lots of calls about the comics page - and about ``Doonesbury'' in particular. Or ``Dumbbunny,'' as one non-fan calls it.
Lots of readers feel that the Garry Trudeau strip is too political for the comics page; that it belongs in the editorial section.
With all the social realism in comic strips, and the strange topics they tackle, I've never felt strongly about the issue. If you don't like it, don't read it.
But reader Liz Gladney of Virginia Beach had me rethinking ``Doonesbury'' this week. Gladney, the mother of a 7-year-old girl, balked at Wednesday's strip, which had a character say that Sen. Packwood grabbed her, ``forcing his tongue into my mouth.''
Timely, provoking, a lesson in workplace sexism. But, as Gladney said, a bit much for a 7-year-old. `` I don't have time to proof the comics every week,'' she said.
Her message, I guess, is that the paper should.
ASPEN ``CAPER.'' Here is a public editor's nightmare.
On Aug. 24, the Aspen Daily News ran a front-page story that began, ``Aspen police are involved in a statewide womanhunt for an unidentified `wild child' who rampaged through local singles bars Wednesday night, leaving a string of wasted males in her wake.''
According to an Associated Press report, a reporter at the Colorado paper typed it up as a prank but put the story in the wrong computer folder. Somehow, it got into print.
The story, which named a local woman, said ``no less than 37 men ages 13 to 78 were taken to local hospitals,'' some suffering from ``sexual exhaustion.''
But here's the real dilemma: Some readers loved it and, according to AP, even came to the newspaper's offices for extra copies. So much for truth in journalism. . . . MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net by CNB