Peggy Hardee has a Sunday morning ritual: Up early, enjoy a cup of coffee, read the newspaper and then its off to church. Last Sunday, The Virginian-Pilot jolted the Virginia Beach resident out of her pleasurable routine: Snarling, bloodthirsty dogs leapt, figuratively, from the front page.
“What would possess your editors to choose this particular photograph to grace the front page?” Hardee asked. “Sensationalism? Drama? Sell papers?”
About a dozen other readers likewise criticized the photo of a staged dogfight in Afghanistan to illustrate “Bloodsport,” staff writer Bill Burke’s examination of dogfighting’s cultural shift from a largely rural South “sport” to one in the “hood.” One reader especially objected to publication of “the rules” of dogfighting. (“It almost sounded like they were trying to recruit people for the ‘sport.’ Shame on you.”)
While most hated the photo, a few thought the story was inappropriate front-page fare. “I cannot believe you featured that terrible article on the front page, and on Father’s Day!” said a subscriber.
Indeed, some would have preferred “something a little lighthearted for Father’s Day,” as a Virginia Beach reader put it.
I was glad to see that Hardee and a couple of others recognized the importance and timeliness of the dogfighting story. It bounces off the sudden public interest in illegal dogfighting, after evidence of a suspected operation was uncovered during an April raid of a Surry County house owned by Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick.
“Indeed, you have the responsibility to educate our community regarding this illegal and painful obsession of those who attempt to profit from abusing animals,” said Hardee, whose chief objection was the front-page photo.
Burke, an Enterprise Team member, tackled a national story that’s “happening in our backyard… in the shadows,” as Pilot editor Denis Finley noted.
“I suspect a lot of readers never knew that such a heinous activity was going on here,” said Finley. “It’s our duty to tell this story in as much detail as possible.”
Pilot managing editor Maria Carrillo thought the photo “helped convey the viciousness of dogfighting.”
It “lends a dose of reality to the story that words cannot,” said Finley.
Photos of injured dogs were used as inside art with Burke’s story. But they don’t come close to illustrating the cruelty of dogfighting. In fact, a large photo of a dog recovered in California in 2006 seems that of simply a sad dog because blood spots on his coat are not clearly evident – as they are at PilotOnline.com.
The complaining readers, I think, are reacting partly to the front-page photo’s size and in-your-face nature. The Pilot, as I’ve noted before, is known for its eye-catching – sometimes graphic – front pages. In this case, the photo of snarling, abused dogs drove home the cruelty of “Bloodsport.”
As for the story running on Father’s Day: The Pilot had been chasing the story and “trying to get it in the paper as quickly as possible,” said Carrillo. That, along with the fact that readers had been following the story and Sunday is the paper’s heaviest readership day, led us to publish the story last Sunday, she explained.
Father’s Day was recognized with a front-page story and a “Happy Father’s Day” greeting, which one reader said “should have been the headline.”
“But the day,” as Finley said, “should not preempt a powerful news story.”
Burke’s story was that. And it was powerfully illustrated.
