“I felt that photo was very inappropriate” writes Barbara Sjoholm. Other readers probably agree.
She was referring to the picture on the front of some editions of the Jan. 24 Local News section. It showed “the brother and sister sharing a kiss — on what appears to be the lips. I’m sorry, but I feel this is wrong,” Ms. Sjoholm e-mailed from Lake Worth. “When do brothers and sisters kiss each other on the lips?”
The answer to where, of course, is Reality, USA — as captured in the photo from Currie Park in West Palm Beach. And perhaps in Italy, from which the kids and their family were here on vacation, and where European cultural sensitivities for 3- and 5-year-olds may factor in.
“There was some concern by some editors in the newsroom over the siblings-kissing photo,” says Assistant Managing Editor/Photography Pete Cross. “Photo Editor Becky Lebowitz and I took an informal poll in the newsroom on whether or not the photo would be regarded as offensive. I noticed most colleagues who had young children, including the photographer who shot it, all agreed it was a tender moment from a very young brother and sister (age was a factor). Colleagues who didn’t have children (except for Ms. Lebowitz) had issues with it.
“I took that to be a sign of sensibility and understanding toward young behavior in children — children exhibiting an honest affection in a manner too young to be inappropriate. I saw it as an honest, tender, loving moment between brother and sister. I suspected others would see it as something else.”
Regarding that Saudi Arabian family’s Greenacres home, where not only did the FBI apparently stumble in recent days, but 1960s movie actress Chris Noel sought to become a squatter: Ray Finch, also of Greenacres, wrote “to express mixed amusement and puzzlement at The Post’s identification of the 61-year-old Ms. Noel, both in the body of the (Jan. 25) story and in the headline on the jump page, as a ‘starlet.’
“The American Heritage Dictionary defines a starlet as ‘a young motion picture actress who is publicized as a future star,’ ” said Mr. Finch. “While there is no question that Ms. Noel once was such a starlet, and a very attractive and talented one at that, has she not outgrown such a small-scale appellation? How much editorial judgment is required to alter the identification to ‘ex-starlet’?”
Or “former” starlet. Mr. Finch is correct, of course, and in a pun that may be apropos of this bizarre story, I’m reminded of a compliment by Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther movie fame, telling a bellboy, “I’ll see to it that you become a bellman.”
There’s a cautionary tale in some of the national coverage of the story to which the newspaper gave the Jan. 22 headline, “Hispanics now U.S.’ biggest minority.” While it is clear that a change is in the works, a major question, it seems, is the number of Hispanics of African descent.
“Unlike blacks, Hispanics do not make up a racial group,” writes Michael Scherer, assistant editor for the Columbia Journalism Review (www.cjr.org/year/03/1/webspecial.asp). “They are a self-identified ethnicity, a group of people who generally trace their roots to Latin America or Spain. Hispanics can be white, black, Native American, Asian or a blend of all these racial categories. So when does an ethnicity really outnumber a racial group, particularly if both categories share some of the same members?”
Mr. Scherer reports that The Associated Press looked at the Census data, “counted 36.1 million blacks and 37 million Hispanics, and thus concluded that Hispanics had outnumbered blacks. The problem is that this formulation counts black Hispanics as Hispanic, but does not count black Hispanics as black, effectively erasing 1.7 million people from the total black population.” He questioned headlines used by the AP (“Hispanics now outnumber blacks as largest U.S. minority group”) and other news organizations that he said opted for “the most news-making interpretation of the data,” in contrast with those like “Hispanics close to becoming largest minority,” for example, in The Miami Herald.
“While the importance of race and ethnicity remains a topic of vigorous debate,” Mr. Scherer said, “journalists too often overlook the nuanced differences between them and the boundaries that define them.” The black Hispanics angle is intriguing, but the overriding issue for newspapers as they cover the undeniable “browning” of America is accuracy.
