The question dealt with fairness and balance in the Metro Business section of The Times-Dispatch.
“I have noticed for some time that the photographs in the [People & Places] department of the Monday Metro Business section of your newspaper feature predominantly Caucasian business personnel. . . . What is the reason for this?” wrote S.I. Cottrell of Midlothian.
He said his query wasn’t a complaint. He simply was curious as to why so few faces of minorities appeared in the announcements of promotions, appointments and awards at Richmond metropolitan area companies.
A check of the People & Places photos in four editions from the last four months produced these numbers:
Oct. 8 — 39 photos (15 women, three minorities).
Nov. 19 — 41 photos (17 women, two minorities).
Dec. 17 — 54 photos (24 women, three minorities).
Jan. 28 — 28 photos (14 women, three minorities).
The imbalance also is a concern for T-D business editors. Robert Powell, editor of Metro Business, said the section is open to announcements from all businesses.
Footnotes to the “Business Briefs” and “Company News” columns invite companies to send in information and pictures. Most of the submissions, Powell said, come from companies with their own or hired public relations firms.
Metro Business makes extra efforts to encourage more small businesses and minority businesses to send in their announcements. Among those efforts as described by Powell:
- A brochure explaining how businesses can get news into the newspaper is widely distributed.
- An online form that eliminates the need of typing up a news release is available.
- Advertisements promoting People & Places are published in The Metropolitan Business League’s newsletters and meeting programs.
- Businesses listed in the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce minority business directory are phoned and invited to submit announcements.
The bottom line, though, is, what you see is what the newspaper gets.
* * *
Another photo bothered George Talios of Glen Allen. “The T-D picture (on Jan. 26) of VMI cadets praying before dinner in their mess hall must be printed in reverse,” he wrote.
“Why else would the flags on the wall be displayed improperly, with the blue field on the right rather than the viewer’s left? . . . I know VMI knows how to properly fly our flag.”
Sure enough, the picture in the Jan. 26 Metro section showed Virginia Military Institute cadets standing, their heads bowed in prayer. In the background, on the walls and between windows, two American flags were hung vertically with the fields in the upper right corner.
The photo, taken in April before a federal judge ruled that the VMI prayer ceremony should be ended, was distributed by The Associated Press and came from the T-D’s electronic library files. The picture also had been published in this newspaper Dec. 15.
Talios was right that VMI knows how to display the flag properly. However, the picture was not reversed and was a true image of the scene.
Lt. Col. Chuck Steenburgh, director of public relations at the institute, explained that those are cloth “display flags,” printed only on one side and intended to be hung horizontally. If horizontal, the field would be in the upper left corner where it should be.
Unfortunately, there isn’t enough space between the windows to position the flags horizontally. So, using Army initiative and probably following orders to get those flags up, those given the task hung them the only way they would fit the space.
We in the newspaper business understand space problems. We who have been in the Army also understand how it responds to a challenge.
We also understand VMI needs to invest in some real flags.
* * *
Then there was the case of King Herod. Yes, that King Herod.
A brief Associated Press item in the T-D a week ago reported on a medical study about the probable cause of death in 4 B.C. of the Judean ruler accused of trying to kill the infant Jesus.
Fred Van Davelaar of Midlothian was among several readers who said they were confused. How did Herod try to kill the infant Jesus if he was already dead four years before Jesus’ birth?
A complete answer would take much more than my allotted space. Basically, it has to do with an eclipse of the moon and a monk who in 525 A.D. decided to draw up a new calendar calculated on the birth of Jesus.
Historians have determined that Herod died soon after a partial eclipse of the moon March 13, 4 B.C. Apparently, the monk Dionysius the Little overlooked a reference in Matthew on the birth of Jesus during “the days of Herod the king.” Other references put Jesus’ birth four to eight years earlier than Dionysius figured.
Thus our calendar also likely is in error and this year really could be 2010 A.D.
Doesn’t that mean the economy should have recovered by now?
