“It’s disgusting that The Pilot would highlight this behavior,” declared Lacie Morgan of Chesapeake in a letter to the editor.
“I would prefer to see another Haynes ad than to read articles like this!” e-mailed a Virginia Beach reader.
Said Kristy Magill of Chesapeake: “I can’t wait to see what’s next in The Daily Break. Let me guess: A ranking of the top 10 dancers in Virginia Beach strip clubs? Or perhaps a photo essay on amphitheater flashers? You’ll have to go a ways to top the story on the big-breasted bartenders.”
If you haven’t guessed already, the topic under discussion (attack?) is The Daily Break’s Summer Nights series exploring “an aspect of Hampton Roads’ burgeoning nightlife scene,” as the tagline on the Saturday feature says.
The angry readers were responding to the “Girls’ Night Out” (“Bar-hopping as a group, these friends find safety in numbers in their pursuit of Mr. Right”) that ran Aug. 23, and “Sizzle Behind the Bar/Granby Street’s female bartenders mix in a measure of sex appeal”) that ran Aug. 30.
“These are trashy articles advertising bimbo gals with no class or culture,” said one letter writer.
I showed Features Team leader Latane Avery, who oversees The Daily Break, the letters and e-mails about the last two stories and asked for her response.
“I’m sorry that some readers felt that the nightlife series was sleazy,” she said. “We weren’t covering Sunday School.”
The Summer Nights series was conceived “as a way to bring more young readers to the paper,” Avery said. “For years, we’ve left young readers out of the paper. With Granby Street booming after dark, it’s about time we cover a long-ignored lifestyle: the bar scene.”
I asked Avery if she thought the sex-infused coverage was pushing the envelope, whether it was too edgy.
“Pushing the envelope? Perhaps,” she replied. “However, we’re often accused of not being edgy enough. I like edgy, and that was the intention of this series. Boring is a bad thing.”
I don’t know if the series has attracted the desired younger readers. I suspect it has, to some degree, although none have contacted me. I’ve only heard from a handful of naysayers. But I suspect they represent a lot of readers who don’t see such coverage as proper fare for “a family newspaper.”
I asked Avery what sort of feedback she’s gotten. “Actually, I’ve had many bar owners call and request that we feature their bar,” she said.
APPLES AND ORANGES? I was telling my niece Monday that when most people look back over the years, it’s usually one or two teachers who really stand out — often those who demanded much and let you know that they believed you were capable of achieving much.
I was delighted, therefore, when I opened Tuesday’s paper to see the Daily Break cover piece, “Who was your favorite teacher?” Seven area residents talked about “their best teacher and what they learned from that person,” toquote the introduction to the package.
While I found the feature by new staff writer Deirdre Fernandes delightful, I was puzzled — and a little concerned — about one aspect of the package: Five of the individuals featured are well-known: Rudy Boesch of “Survivor” TV fame, Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf, Virginia Symphony music director JoAnn Falletta, Portsmouth schools superintendent David Stuckwisch and Chesapeake Commonwealth’s Attorney Randy Smith. We ran color photographs of them, childhood photos for Falletta and Boesch.
Two African Americans were included. Both were children, 13-year-old Harold Crowd and Sabrina Hill, 12. They got black-and-white photos — because of a technical glitch, in Crowd’s case.
What’s with that? I wondered. Certainly the reporter could have tapped some well-known, professional blacks. Norfolk State University President Marie McDemmond and L.D. Britt, chair of the surgery department at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, leaped to mind.
Edith Hewitt Lee must have felt the same way. She called Tuesday to say she was “kind of perturbed” by the article. She noted that “whites who are prominent” were featured. “It seems like to me the article was one-sided because there certainly are some professional blacks who could go under that category,” she said.
Latane Avery concedes that the shift from prominent individuals to two black kids might raise questions.
Even Fernandes thinks Lee has raised “a reasonable question.” Fernandes says she “got some names” from Pilot staffers and called them. “I actually went out and talked to the kids,” she adds.
Fernandes’ editor, Education Team Leader Lorraine Eaton, who suggested the story, said the project didn’t begin as one featuring largely prominent individuals. She wanted some prominent people “and some regular people,” with geography, ethnicity, gender and occupations taken into consideration.
Those factors came into play. But the fact is the feature is heavy on prominent individuals to the extent that that is the perceived theme. Adding two black kids to the package gives the feature an apples-and-oranges feel.
“I hate that it turned out that way,” says Eaton.
