Letters   

Diversity Drive Discomfort
Kudos to Alicia C. Shepard for her "High Anxiety" piece (November). She tackled a delicate and sensitive area and did so without any inordinate tilting of the scales.
Journalism 101 tells us that every good piece should contain a thematic sentence. In the Shepard piece, I'd opt for "..both whites and minorities are extremely uncomfortable about the way diversity policies are being implemented." Amen.
Whites view it with a legitimate fear that the price of diversity must by its very nature and implementation be to their own detriment. Minorities, on the other hand, while welcoming diversity, are forced to live with the feeling, real or imagined, that their hire or promotion may in fact have been at the cost of a passed-over white colleague who is equally or perhaps better qualified.
Thus, when certain entrenched (read: safe) white senior managers can play the P.C. game and suggest their desires to address the "ills of past abuses" by "favoring" or "tilting" towards minorities or women, then the American pursuit of social equality takes a beating. Talent and competence take a back seat to primary considerations of race and gender. This, under the guise of "fairness."
Fairness to one via unfairness to another does not wash. So what's the answer? If I knew that, I could probably eliminate world racial, ethnic, religious and ideological polarizations. I don't know the definitive answer of righting past wrongs, but I do know that when social experiments, read enforced diversity, place preferential treatment on targeted persons to the detriment of other "not guilty" persons, alienation is generally the result, though it be of the sotto voce kind. Perhaps the worst kind of all because such undercurrents breed resentment. Resentment breeds hate. And so on. The very "ills that have built up over the course of a century" that enforced diversity is ironically purporting to cure.
Dare I risk colleague ire by again quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who placed "content of character" before "color of skin"? Can we not therefore universally place not only "content of character" but competence, talent and experience before race, color or gender considerations? Are these work ethic qualities in anyone really so hard to discern? I doubt it.

Greater Diversity
The table accompanying your November cover story, "High Anxiety," stated that the Buffalo News has 3 percent minority representation on its professional newsroom staff. The correct percentage, to date, is 5.45 percent.
We are certainly content with this number and continue to strive to upgrade our minority numbers.

Local TV News Is Bad
Your September cover story "Why Is Local TV News So Bad?" provided an excellent exercise for my senior class in television reporting at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
The students wrote eloquently and idealistically about the problems of television news, agreeing with all of the writers except RTNDA President David Bartlett. With their permission, I am quoting from the students:
• "David Bartlett says, 'For better or worse, local television quite accurately reflects the needs and interests of the viewing public.' 'For worse' is the appropriate qualifier. His simplistic spiel justifying the content and purpose of local news exhibits what a shallow recourse his association has to fall back on."
• "David Bartlett refers in particular to the often violent images that audiences are subjected to, but denies the possibly potent effects they might have on the viewer: 'Violence has been a part of our world far longer than television, or even journalism.'
"True..but these scenes can be handled in different ways, and each delivers a starkly contrasting message. Either their presentation can serve as a deterrent to would-be violent criminals, or they can exploit. It is the task of responsible journalists to differentiate between the two."
• "Bartlett says, 'Television has always been a better mirror than a spotlight. It reflects reality.' Local news should concentrate on the real world, rather than the superficial stories with good pictures. I do not believe news is supposed to be entertaining. Sure, I do not want to fall asleep during the newscast, but hopefully with decent pictures and good writing I would not."
• "David Bartlett would have one believe that this new focus (soft or sensational eye-catching so-called news, at the expense of substance) is exactly what the public wants. In reality, though, the public really has no say in what news stories they are able to watch. Local TV news is about ratings. No longer do programmers adhere to or care about the mission of serving the public interest. Today, local broadcasts, in much the same way as political campaigns, are nothing more than self-promoting entertainment devices."
And a personal observation. Bartlett dismisses newspaper critics in these words: "..hearing newspaper critics beat up on local television news reminds me of a dinosaur condemning a mammal for acting silly." David Bartlett might well read Michael Crichton's article "Mediasaurs" in the September/October issue of Wired. He wrote, "It is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years... Large segments of the American population think the media is attentive to trivia, and indifferent to what really matters. They also believe that the media does not report the country's problems, but instead is a part of them."
Is David Bartlett serving his broadcast news constituents by reflexively defending the way it is? Or, will that view lead to Crichton's apocalyptic view of the future for mass media? My television reporting students are afraid Crichton may be closer to the mark than Bartlett.

Later for the Alligator
Although he's a successful and accomplished novelist, I hope Carl Hiaasen doesn't give up his day job writing columns for the Miami Herald ("Carl of the Wild," October).
He's funny, witty, sarcastic, acerbic, biting, humorous — and that's just Sunday's column. And what a shame we only get him two times a week.
But that picture of Carl holding a crocodile scares me: We've had too many tragic accidents in South Florida lately, and we can't afford to lose our favorite columnist.

Married with Bylines

At Weekly Papers
I enjoyed the article on married working journalists who share the same bed and the same newsroom ("Married with Bylines," October). Funny thing, though, until the daily press discovers this trend — and can drip angst and anguish — then it doesn't exist.
Weekly newspapers have been operating for about a century with literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of husband-wife teams. To us it isn't a trend, but rather a tradition.
My parents worked together for nearly 30 years and now that my wife has retired from teaching, we're jumping on the bandwagon. There really isn't anything better than working all day and all night with the person you
love.

Tobacco Ad Bans
I applaud your coverage of the decision by some newspapers to refuse tobacco ads ("Smokeless in Seattle," October). But the 7,800-circulation News Sun in Kendallville, Indiana, is not the smallest newspaper.
Does our 6,500-circulation sheet qualify as the dinkiest daily?

Please let me correct a statement in "Smokeless in Seattle." The Columbus Dispatch has not accepted tobacco advertising for four years and, if you check, I am sure you will find that we have a larger circulation than the Seattle Times.
I am sure Seattle Times President Mason Sizemore is pleased with the reaction to his announcement, but the Dispatch made no such announcement, we just banned tobacco advertising.

I enjoyed Dan Bischoff's article. However, he is incorrect in stating that only a few magazines refuse tobacco ads. According to a list published in December 1991 by the Journal of the American Medical Association, more than 175 American periodicals do not accept such advertising.

Generic Trademarks
Your special advertising section, "Trademark Tribulations" (September), omitted a frank discussion of the central question. When should journalists use a trademark generically?
The corporate answer would likely be that such usage is legitimate only after the matter has been litigated.
But in our small western Pennsylvania community, those who own in-line skates go "rollerblading." They don't go "in-line skating."
So, what to do? Alter quotes? Hardly. If the kid said he was "rollerblading," that's how he is quoted.
Regarding Kleenex and Band-Aids, "tissues" and "bandages" are commonly used nouns. But who, before rollerblading, used "in-line skates" as a noun in conversation or in informal writing?
Sometimes a new trademark announces a new technology, be it in-line skates or brassieres. The adjectival trademark and the generic noun enter the language simultaneously and fight it out for acceptance. Journalists can strive to preserve trademark integrity during that phase. But at some point the people who use the language resolve the matter by adopting either the noun or the trademark as generic. When they do, so should we.
We ought not to be in the business of destroying valuable trademarks. But neither are we in the business of perpetuating awkward, artificial or antiquated usages.
Spandex-stretchers rarely intrude into our public meetings or police blotters, so protecting Lycra is (excuse, please), a snap. But, alas for its capitalization, "Rollerblades" as a trademark seems doomed to roll into nylon-zipper heaven. We are mirrors of our communities, not commercial speech police.