DATE: Sunday, September 21, 1997            TAG: 9709190007

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM

                                            LENGTH:   98 lines

REPORT TO READERS CREATIVE WRITING: CLEVER OR BIASED?

Do readers lack a sense of humor, or are we just not very funny? Worse, is some journalistic creativity misplaced?

I raise the questions because of two fairly typical queries this week. The first concerned The Pilot's Sept. 12 story about the new Regent University president, Lt. Gen. Paul Cerjan.

The third paragraph stated, ``But for those who think he's about to institute close-order drill exercises each morning on the lawn in Virginia Beach, Cerjan on Thursday urged everyone not to jump to conclusions.''

M.D. Ridge of Norfolk saw an implication of bias in that statement. ``The comment seems to indicate what the writer thinks of military men,'' said Ridge. ``If it was meant as humor it certainly fell short.''

But it made a point, and I doubt the writer expected anyone to take the drill exercise literally.

In fact, writer Tony Wharton says he was just paraphrasing a question that had been put to Cerjan when he was interviewed for the job.

The alternative could have been something deadpan like: ``But for those who think he's going to run Regent University like a military institute. . . .'' That's a bit heavy-handed, and reporters need leeway for creativity. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Another challenge to ``creative writing'' was directed at Wednesday's front-page story about the House of Delegates race.

The story had a catchy lead: ``Two years ago, Virginia Republicans swaggered into November ready to capture the legislature and embark on a program to cut taxes, winnow government and reform education.''

It was the ``swaggered'' that set off Greg Bidanset of Virginia Beach. ``I was wondering if this newspaper has really decided that Republicans walk around with bold arrogance,'' he said, citing the dictionary definition, ``and if you think that is unbiased reporting just before election time.''

Wouldn't ``walked with confidence,'' he suggested, be a more neutral approach?

The reader has a point. During an election, words like ``swaggered'' are loaded. Yes, the Republicans charged into that session with confidence. But ``swaggered'' does open us up to intimations of bias.

Keeping election coverage fair and nonpartisan is a constant challenge. Why? Because fair's fair, but neutral can be dull.

``I respect the fact that people have reactions to words,'' said state editor Sue Robinson, ``but I wish we were sometimes as concerned with boring readers as we are about offending them. We walk that balance beam all the time.''

Well, that's how it goes with verbal gymnastics. They pose a risk - and readers are our judges.

WHAT'S THE SCORE? Can't The Pilot publish SAT scores from private schools? That request came from Adrienne Soroka of Virginia Beach. Soroka says we're always listing public school scores, but her children attend private school and she'd like to see how their SAT scores compare with those in other private schools. Same for parochial and magnet schools.

Good idea but we can't do it. Education editor Debra Adams says the state doesn't keep a record of SATs for private schools.

WE STRIKE OUT. Several people complained about the missing baseball standings in Tuesday's sports section.

It was one of those technical glitches. The problem was corrected for a later edition but some readers drew a blank.

John Lawrence also issued a plea to drop the gray screen over box scores - said he needs a magnifying glass and a halogen lamp to make out the small numbers.

So drop the gray, said Lawrence. Not only would it be easier to read, but think of the ink we'd save. . . .

NOT SPACE JARGON. Nothing gets by our eagle-eyed readers. Richard A. DeLong caught this one in the Sept. 10 paper - a caption showing the next shuttle crew ``readying for Sept. 25's planned liftout to meet Space Station Mir.''

Liftout? ``Now there is a new word!'' said DeLong, who pointed to the correct vernacular, ``liftoff,'' in the headline.

Actually, ``liftout'' is jargon, too - in journalese, it refers to a quote or comment that's ``lifted out'' of a story in big, bold type.

Reminds me of the time we abused another bit of journalism jargon - ``sidebar,'' a secondary or accompanying story.

That happened last year, in a headline: ``Whale gets stranded on sidebar in N.C.'s Oregon Inlet.''

And while we're at it: Readers groaned at a headline goof last weekend. It was on a Sports article about the new Jack Kent Cooke stadium.

The headline: ``Redskin players modivated for their late owner.''

Good motivation for using computer spell-check. . . .

STRIPPED COMICS. Where's ``Shoe''? Where's ``Beetle Bailey''? Where's ``Hagar''?

Those questions have become a fixture on my weekend voice-mail lately as one or the other of those three strips is missing from the Sunday comics.

The explanation doesn't delight callers, but here it is: When there's an ad in the color comics section, that usually means reducing the size of several comic panels to make the ad fit. Readers didn't like that either.

So features editor Eric Sundquist gave the comic prints a short list of three strips that can be dropped (one at a time) when space is tight. He chose those strips because they'd already been dropped from the daily paper.

So those Sunday-only strips haven't been canceled permanently, but they might be missing now and then.

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