THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607060001
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: 94 lines
Editors and reporters sometimes have enterprising ideas, but this one had more enterprise than most - or Enterprise, that is.
A map to track the carrier's Mediterranean deployment over the next six months, with coordinates printed three times a week - all in The Virginian-Pilot.
Regular columns by crew members about life at sea, also to run in the newspaper.
And Pilot On Board, a hometown newspaper e-mailed to the ship for printing and distribution twice a week.
Military editor/writer Earl Swift explained the whole plan in a column Wednesday, June 26, on The Pilot's Military News page. And that's when the reader responses began.
Cora Houser was one of the first to call. Her husband is a senior chief on another Norfolk-based carrier, the George Washington.
``Why the sudden interest in the Enterprise leaving?'' she asked. ``The George Washington battle group has been gone since January. I'm just curious - why didn't they map and chart them?''
Two days later, The Pilot ran a front-page story, ``The Big E is ready,'' with a full page inside devoted to the map.
Houser called back after reading the story. She really liked the map. Six months is a long time when a loved one is at sea, she said, and ``you'd be surprised at how many Navy wives don't even know what's in that part of the world.''
(We're not perfect either. Corfu, off the coast of Greece, was mismarked on the Enterprise map.)
Houser, a mother of two who was in the Navy herself for six years, also said she understood ``a little bit more'' about why the newspaper had focused on the Enterprise after reading about its history, back to the '60s, and the major overhaul it just had.
But she still wondered: Why didn't The Pilot do this kind of mapping and tracking for all the carriers?
I've heard this question at least a half-dozen times over since then, mostly concerning the George Washington but also from relatives of men and women aboard submarines and smaller vessels.
The answer - and perhaps the newspaper didn't make this clear enough when it embarked on the project - is that this is just a start. It required brainstorming, some sophisticated map software and a little help from a new satellite system that has facilitated ship-to-shore communication.
If the tracking map and the e-mail newspaper work with the Enterprise, it may well be done for other carrier groups as well.
Surprisingly, there's one question that hasn't come up from readers: Isn't it a breach of security to give out the coordinates of the Enterprise?
The answer is no, or else the Navy wouldn't be cooperating in this venture. The Enterprise's location is being phoned or e-mailed to the newspaper by the ship's public-affairs officers (PAOs). Swift notes that by the time he gets the coordinates, they are two days old. And by the time they're in the paper, it's Day 3.
What about providing the positions of other ships in the carrier group? As Swift noted in his column, the map can't reflect the location of every vessel because some could be dispersed hundreds of miles away.
The idea for an intensive look at a deployed carrier group began in May, after Swift - newly named to the military reporting team - went aboard the Enterprise as it cruised off the Virginia capes.
Swift was on board for an assignment, but the Navy invited numerous journalists and other civilians to tour the carrier while it was offshore. I went in October 1994, and still have my honorary tailhooker certificate, and a photo of me, looking queasy, on the Enterprise deck.
While he was on board, Swift talked about the idea of a tracking map with the Enterprise's command master chief and PAOs, then back on dry land with his reporting team. Everyone was for it.
Bingo, the concept of an Enterprise Battle Group 1996 Tracking Chart was born, along with the twice-weekly newspaper Pilot On Board.
Bob Little, a Richmond-based reporter for The Pilot, was on the carrier when it set off last week for its first major deployment in six years, and heard a good deal of praise for the map, from admirals on down.
``Everyone said, `Oh, I sent one of these to my sister in Michigan, and she's going to be following it' or `My children have one on the refrigerator.'''
But, off the Enterprise, other folks with family members in the Navy felt slighted - not just Cora, but also Jennie, Tammy, David, Lisa, Carrie and Lori, among others. (A retired Navy wife urges us not to use full names of people whose spouses are gone on a lengthy deployment - makes them vulnerable to crackpots and worse, she said. Houser gave me permission to use her name. She has faith in Hoody, her 100-pound Tibetan mastiff. Besides, her husband will be back soon.)
Anyway, these readers want more from the newspaper than just photos of them waving goodbye to their loved ones, then tearfully greeting them six months later.
Swift says that's his goal, too, and that's why the Enterprise experiment was launched.
``We are going to cover the hell out of the Navy at sea,'' he said. ``When a ship leaves Hampton Roads, it's no longer going to fall off the face of the Earth.''
by CNB