Our first story about the horrific two-car accident on Interstate 264 early May 11 generated the most calls in the past week about a single story. Several readers questioned the accuracy of our banner headline.
It read: “Mom-to-be, 3 others killed: Driver headed wrong way on I-264 hits car taking woman to Beach hospital to deliver baby.”
Some callers thought our headline writer erred in not counting 19-year-old Debra Lee Van Sickle’s unborn daughter as one of those killed.
“The news reported that the mother was in labor at the time, meaning that the child was, for all intent and purpose, already living,” said one reader.
“There were at least five victims in the accident,” said Chaplain James C. Ulian with the Virginia Beach Police Department. “The baby was viable and a life. That child, though not named, certainly is a life in the eyes of God.”
Asked Kathryn Gainor Ventura: “Did they save the baby? Or did the baby die and it was five deaths?”
Deputy managing editor Denis Finley said he “knew we would have people who would have a problem with that from the pro-life side of the fence.”
Finley, who identified himself as pro-life, said the unborn child was not counted chiefly because “technically, it’s not a human being yet. This is not a religious belief and I’m not dishonoring this life, I’m just speaking from a technical point of view.”
Finley concedes that “the whole matter has probably never been thought through” in terms of whether, if a pregnant woman dies, the unborn child should be counted as a separate death.
This may not go over well with many right-to-lifers, but I think it is correct to not count an unborn child as a death in an instance where the mother-to-be dies. Like Finley, I am not devaluing the worth of the unborn child nor stating a religious belief.
TOO RAW? Occasionally, readers complain that they’ve read or seen something in The Pilot that shouldn’t be in a “family newspaper.”
Photos — something as tame as a close-up of actor Jim Carrey’s underarm or as risque as syndicated columnist Dave Barry’s infamous “bumper dumper” photo — tend to spark the most reaction.
Seemingly questionable language, on the other hand, may spark a lone response. As was the case with a published review May 15 of Portsmouth native Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott’s new CD, “Miss E . . . So Addictive” by correspondent Nia Ngina Meeks.
George M. Murray of Virginia Beach thought the review “not appropriate for a family newspaper.” He was especially miffed over this line: “Elliott doesn’t mind telling guys how she wants it, when she wants it, and how good she is at giving it.”
Murray said: “Today’s parents have enough problems keeping their teens from dwelling on such prurient themes. By giving what amounts to a free advertisement for music that is clearly not appropriate for young people, [The Pilot] simply promotes trash.” And he didn’t think that Meeks saying “This is clearly an adult album” let us off the hook.
Entertainment editor David Simpson, who edited the review, said the piece had to run. “You can’t ignore her,” said Simpson, noting that Missy is local and a hot property. “If we had ignored it, parents or young people might go out and buy it and then find it sexually explicit,” he said.
Couldn’t we have gotten that message across without using the language that offended Murray? I asked.
Yes, Simpson replied. “We could say it has strong sexual content.”
I agree with Simpson when he asserts that the review was a must. But I would have much preferred the “strong sexual content” summation over the she-wants-it line.
QUALIFICATIONS, PLEASE: A reader, who said she has been reading published reviews of concerts and activities connected with the Virginia Arts Festival, suggested that The Pilot run a tagline at the bottom of reviews “giving these people’s qualifications to tell us whether something was good or not.”
We run such taglines with book reviews and op-ed pieces, so I asked Daily Break editor Latane Jones about the possibility of doing so for music reviews.
Jones promised to look into the matter, with an eye to possibly doing it for some reviews.
Why not all? Because it would be difficult to spell out the qualifications of some reviewers beyond their deep interest in the genre — even some who have reviewed music for a number of years, Jones said.
I’d put myself in that category. I regularly review new music, mostly jazz. But I don’t play a musical instrument, have never taken a music-related course, and can’t carry a tune even though I love to sing in private.
I suggested that Jones compile a list of her reviewers and their “qualifications” for my benefit. It may be fodder for a future column.
