You may not have noticed, but we moved Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
No kidding. It was in Norfolk, and we moved it to Virginia Beach. Where it belongs.
You can thank Neal T. English for that, although the modest Virginia Beach resident shies away from the spotlight.
A retired public relations official, English heads a largely one-man effort called Hampton Roads Fairness in Media Policy (“It’s a baby in swaddling clothes at this point”). His efforts on behalf of media accuracy demonstrate the power of one to change things.
A while back, English wrote The Pilot to complain that we repeatedly reported that ships and units at Little Creek are “Norfolk-based.” That’s “out of touch with reality,” English said.
Among others, English wrote Pilot editor Kay Tucker Addis and publisher D. R. Carpenter III. English had hit upon the Little Creek Amphibious Base location while doing research for a book on Virginia Beach. His contact with The Pilot sparked a great deal of research on our part.
Pilot military editor Carl Fincke, after reviewing the data, concluded that the base is, indeed, located in Virginia Beach. He suggested to Addis that stories dealing with the facility henceforth carry a Virginia Beach dateline.
That’s because the property is physically in Virginia Beach — as reflected on current maps and verified by city land assessors.
But the base has a Norfolk address — has since the World War II years, when the facility was formed from four different bases. Most of them were in then-Princess Anne County.
With one exception: A small portion of land that includes the base’s administrative offices is in Norfolk. Hence, the Norfolk postmark.
We’re told that Navy officials are exploring the possibility of a switch to a Virginia Beach post office address.
Meanwhile, the Guide to Military Installations Worldwide, which has previously located Little Creek Amphibious Base in Norfolk, says in its new, 2003 edition that the base is in Virginia Beach.
English had contacted Little Creek officials as well as the media about his concerns.
Publisher Carpenter wrote English in August to thank him for his efforts and to request his patience while we “spread the word” throughout the newsroom and our bureaus.
We heard from English again the other day — on the same subject. A story Dec. 7 about the return of the dock landing ship Portland from a four-month deployment carried the correct Virginia Beach dateline.
But our large, accompanying map clearly showed the Portland’s journey ending in Norfolk.
“We all know that The Pilot can accomplish miracles. Right?” wrote English, who noted, among other things, that — once again — we had moved the base to Norfolk.
English is right. As the kids would say, our bad.
I wish there were more folks like English — individuals willing to work for change. English said he frequently encounters people who comment about things they see in the paper or on television that they consider incorrect or unfair.
When he suggests that they contact the media, the response he often gets is “it would be just a waste of my time; they won’t listen,” he says.
English’s effort proves them wrong.
Here and there: David Farrugia called to say that we had screwed up the address of the Virginia Beach eatery Salad Days in a Dec. 1 Gracious Living restaurant review.
Tammy Jaxtheimer’s review and a photo identification placed the restaurant on Lynnhaven Parkway. But an informational box located it at 922 S. Lynnhaven Road.
“Lynnhaven Parkway and South Lynnhaven Road are not the same road,” Farrugia said. “So anybody who tries to find this place on one or the other is going to be disappointed.”
Like the Little Creek Amphibious Base situation, it’s an address thing. “We’ve had this problem since we opened” 14 months ago, says co-owner Karen Sipler, who tells people the business is on Lynnhaven Parkway.
Actually, the two streets intersect.
Before V: Sometimes it’s the little stuff that bugs people. Like the order of publication for area death notices: Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach and Suffolk.
“Doesn’t Suffolk come before Virginia Beach?” asked John Matthews of Suffolk. “Suffolk is no longer a small village. It is the largest city in Virginia” by area.
We mean Suffolk no disrespect. We use that order, essentially, because we’ve done it that way for years and years. We once had a Suffolk edition and the order allowed editors to pull Suffolk obits out for the main metro edition, or pull the other Southside cities’ obits from the Suffolk edition. Also, the order put Suffolk’s obits next to listings for Western Tidewater, which includes Smithfield, Franklin, Isle of Wight and Southampton County.
There’s no reason why we couldn’t bump Suffolk ahead of the Beach, says Pilot news operations director Marian Anderfuren. The order may be re-evaluated when the paper’s new, front-end production system comes on line next year.
