Pity poor Bill Whitehurst.
The affable, former congressman hasn’t fared well lately in the pages of The Virginian-Pilot.
In the space of a month, we:
- Fired him from his teaching job at Old Dominion University.
- Gave readers the wrong topic for his planned speech last Tuesday at Portsmouth’s Commodore Theatre.
- Killed him off by tagging him as “the late Congressman” in an Oct. 4 story in the Homearama 2001 supplement.
“I guess we’ll just have to resurrect him,” joked his wife, Janie, when told of our latest error.
Former Rep. G. William Whitehurst is alive and well. And very active. “He’s the happiest, elderly kid I know,” says Janie Whitehurst.
A member of Congress for 18 years, Whitehurst is the Kaufman Lecturer in Public Affairs at ODU, where he teaches three courses. This is his second go-round at ODU. He taught there for 18 years before his election to Congress.
A Daily Break cover story last month said that Whitehurst “once taught history” at ODU — an error his wife called to our attention because, she said, “I wouldn’t want his students to think they don’t have to attend class.”
Then, on Oct. 2, we said his Second Tuesday Forum series lecture would be on the topic “A New Century and a New Beginning for America and the World.” In the wake of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, Whitehurst had changed his topic to “Islamism: The Real Threat.”
The forum sponsors faxed a press release saying as much, and I left it for the newsroom person responsible for area briefs. But that person accepted a story from a reporter based on an earlier press release, and tossed the one I left — the one that said in large bold type the speech topic had changed — in the wastebasket without reading it.
A couple of readers called — as recently as Wednesday — to say reports of Whitehurst’s death were greatly exaggerated. “I think he was supposed to be giving a speech,” one woman said.
Two, in fact, on the same day. On Tuesday, the 76-year-old Whitehurst not only kicked off the Second Tuesday Forum series, but also addressed a group of chaplains that morning at ODU.
Quite a feat for a dead guy, huh?
What made us think he was dead?
A correspondent who wrote the story for the Tidewater Builders Association’s publication and shared it with us goofed. Someone at TBA caught the error in time for the TBA newsletter story to be correct. But the original had already been sent to us, and The Pilot editor who handled the copy did not catch the mistake.
The Pentagon: The Pentagon has not been moved from Northern Virginia to Washington, D.C.
Bob Mullins asked me to let folks know that. Perhaps I could put it in a newspaper headline, he said. Because Mullins is sick and tired of hearing people say that terrorists attacked “Washington.”
“I’ve been putting up with all the people in the news talking about all the deaths in New York and Washington and even different correspondents that your paper carries about the deaths in New York and Washington,” Mullins said.
“I’d just like you to point out to all your reporters and people that write in your paper that the Pentagon has not been moved from Northern Virginia to Washington, D.C., yet, that I know of.”
Mullins is right, of course. The Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defense, is in Virginia. Arlington, to be specific. In fact, The Pentagon’s official Web site notes that about 23,000 employees, civilian and military, “arrive daily from Washington, D.C., and its suburbs.”
That said, I don’t expect Mullins will be satisfied. Practically everyone will continue to say the terrorist attacks were in New York and Washington.
That’s because the Pentagon is a mere hop, skip and a jump from D.C. Even the Pentagon’s Web site says “WASHINGTON” under its official logo.
Insensitive? A few readers rapped our knuckles for our front page photo Oct. 3 of the daughter of slain Norfolk police officer James B. Gilbert, who was killed in the line of duty. They said it was in poor taste, insensitive, intrusive, etc.
But Gilbert’s widow, Tiffany, thought otherwise. She called to say that staff writer Matthew Dolan’s story about her husband’s memorial service was “wonderful.”
And of Chris Tyree’s photograph she said:
“Great picture, very, very emotional picture and I just hope it sends a message to a lot of people about how tragic this was.”
