The Monday Lifestyle section is designed to be a lighthearted way to start the week, as illustrated by last Monday’s trivia questions for the mayoral candidates, complete with their favorite jokes.
But some readers never got to the punch lines. Something went terribly wrong with the illustration.
The two mayoral candidates, John Peyton and Nat Glover, were shown as bobblehead dolls from the Jacksonville Suns. Placed next to each other, the dolls took on disturbing meanings.
As 45 readers pointed out, the Nat Glover doll had no hands, blobs for shoes, a club instead of a bat, paint specks for a belt and — most upsetting — a white mark around his neck that raised specters of nooses and lynching. It looked deformed. The Peyton doll was newer, with a real belt, better shoes, hands at the end of his arms and no marks on his neck.
Overlay a history of racial inequalities to the obvious differences in the dolls and disturbing flashbacks were reported by readers. Here are some of the adjectives they used: disappointing, sickening, heartbreaking, disgraceful, reprehensible, ignorant, offensive.
Readers asked: How could the newspaper justify this?
Here is what happened. Graphics Art Director Steve Nelson obtained two actual bobblehead dolls from the Jacksonville Suns, then used a computer program to insert the faces of both mayoral candidates, add political symbols to the uniforms and so forth. The doll used for Glover was an earlier model. It came with the crude limbs, for example. There were some cracks that Nelson tried his best to clean up on the computer. However, the cracks produced a white line around the neck of the bobblehead doll.
Nelson said he noticed the poor condition of the Glover doll, but had no idea that all these racial connotations were involved. No other staffers picked up on it, either, to the best of my knowledge.
My comments: As readers suggested, the newer doll should have been used for both candidates. That would have eliminated the offensive disparities. It was an illustration anyway.
In my conversations with readers, most were willing to accept that this illustration wasn’t meant to offend. But it was far more difficult to explain why nobody understood the full impact of this inequity.
If there were more African-Americans in the Times-Union newsroom, perhaps someone would have understood the power of this racial image.
Shortchanged on coverage
It wasn’t any old high school reunion. Andrew Jackson High School celebrated 75 years of existence recently at the Prime Osborn Convention Center. There were even former mayors, Jake Godbold and Lou Ritter, in attendance.
About 4,000 people gathered to remember this city landmark. Yet, the coverage was limited to a few of the Times-Union’s neighborhood sections. It ran as the centerpiece on the front of the Northside, Arlington, Southside and Westside sections, then ran in truncated form elsewhere.
“I’m disappointed in the support the Times-Union gave to this event,” said Barbara Grant, a 1955 graduate of Jackson. She expected full coverage in the main newspaper the day after the event.
My comment: Me, too. It’s a lost opportunity to create good will with the readers. That’s a precious commodity.
High school alert: School administrators, get your list of graduates by tomorrow to Lori Park for the Class Acts section. E-mail is preferred: lparkjacksonville.com. Or call her at (904) 359-4248.
