Some Free Press readers have been decidedly upset at recent headlines and coverage.
They questioned the front-page play of an article about a Bloomfield Township girl who says she had sex with teen boys and young men, then wrote about it in her diary, leading to charges against at least five boys and men.
Then some took issue with the front-page headline advancing the start of the Red Wings’ Stanley Cup final series against the Carolina Hurricanes, which said “Aunt Bee and Opie meet Hockeytown.”
Some letter writers said publishing the sex-diary article was irresponsible, unnecessary and prurient.
One person said the article had some value in raising the issue of age-of-consent reform, but melodramatic presentation overshadowed the message.
I received about 10 calls on the article, while the main reporter on it, Amy Klein, got about 40 calls and 50 e-mails.Many of those were not critical.
Callers and e-mailers to Klein asked questions about the rights of the boys involved, the obligation of parents to guide their children and the influence of television and movies.
Some readers said it was the newspaper’s responsibility to open the public’s eyes to what’s happening with teens, and called for more discussion of parenting problems and more examination of statutory rape laws.
Free Press Executive Editor Carole Leigh Hutton said there were good reasons for the article.
“This particular case is sensitive and may be extreme, but the issue of teen sexuality faces parents, educators and kids every day, and the cost to these kids — both girls and boys — is far higher than many of us understand,” Hutton said. “Sometimes it’s our job to push the community into a conversation that might lead to solutions.”
Complaints about the “Aunt Bee” headline probably were heightened by other swipes at North Carolinians by columnist Mitch Albom and editorial cartoonist Mike Thompson.
Albom’s June 4 column was a make-believe conversation with a fictional Carolina cousin, sports writer Moonshine Albom. Thompson’s cartoons were of Carolinians resembling the “Beverly Hillbillies” traveling to a game, and of a cross-eyed, one-tooth, barefoot banjo player from the movie “Deliverance” preparing to sing the national anthem.
Although they were done in fun, the stereotypical depictions rankled some, including me. I was born and reared in North Carolina.
The problem is that stereotypes, meant in jest or not, are pejorative and inaccurate and compromise the credibility of our opinions on other things.
One colleague said that if we had substituted African Americans, Canadians or many others in such light, we would have been deluged with criticism.
Richard Brown, a frequent editorial page letter writer from Detroit, made this observation: “I have no problem with people from the South. There is a whole lot of tolerance in this area, and we’ve been stereotyped ourselves. But the shoe could be on the other foot. In this case, the foot was probably in our mouth.”
