Sensitivity or homogenization?

AN EDITORIAL DESCRIBES a shifting government policy as "schizophrenic."

A commentator uses the term "educational nanny" in referring to a court's intrusion in a school expulsion case.

An editorial cartoon depicts a pair of Klansmen discussing a newspaper story about Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, with one of the robed figures suggesting that the "nigger," whose views many would describe as racist, actually makes a lot of sense.

In each instance, journalists found themselves accused of insensitivity -- or worse. The editorial that used the term "schizophrenic" was attacked as a slur against the mentally ill. The pundit who employed the term "nanny" was accused of perpetuating ethnic stereotypes, chiefly because the judge in the expulsion case was black. And the editorial cartoon, although intended as a caustic disapproval of racist attitudes, was itself widely condemned as racist.

That newspaper editorial pages can, even inadvertently, find themselves at odds with reader sensibilities was the subject of "How to get into hot water: Sensitivity and standards in editorial pages," a panel discussion at the NCEW convention. The forum was moderated by John Finneman, deputy director of the American Press Institute. Participants were Dinah Eng, whose regular column "Bridges" is distributed nationally by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate; Dennis Renault, editorial cartoonist for The Sacramento Bee; and Clarence Page, editorial writer and columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Not surprisingly, panelists found it easier to delineate the dilemmas than to chart any solutions.

Finneman suggested that most editorial pages need little instruction on how to get into hot water with readers. "By the very nature of what you do," he said, "you're going to offend some of the people some of the time." Increasingly, however, newspapers are going to extraordinary lengths to respect the diversity of its audience and avoid offending those constituencies unnecessarily, Finneman said.

"Are we going to see a homogenization of pages, a homogenization of issues?" Finneman asked. He doesn't think so. If the press can get past petty charges of "political correctness" -- of the sort leveled against the much-ridiculed Los Angeles Times stylebook, for example -- then it can begin to deal with the serious questions of sensitivity and diversity.

For Eng, the first nationally syndicated Asian-American columnist, dealing with the issue of sensitivity starts with acknowledging who we are -- the identities of journalists and their audiences. A diversity of backgrounds yields a diversity of opinions, Eng said, and the more that people acquaint themselves with these varying identities, the more sensitivity they develop.

In ignoring the protests of those who claim to have been offended by something in print, "maybe we don't want to acknowledge their sensitivity as having a valid point," she said. "Part of sensitivity is dialoguing with people and not shutting them off."

Is it possible to be too sensitive? Renault's experience with the Klansmen cartoon he penned suggests that it might be. In the Outcry that followed the cartoon's appearance last February, his employers issued no fewer than five apologies. "I challenge anybody to match this Guinness record," Renault said. "The paper crumpled."

Rather than arising from a "confederacy of dunces" that did not understand the cartoon, the negative response was in fact "marvelously politically motivated," Renault suggested. Many factors contributed both to reader reaction and the newspaper's response to readers, he said, not least of which was the fact that African-American activists, shortly before the cartoon appeared, had met with his editorial board to expose what they saw as racism in cartoons, news coverage, and hiring and promotions practices at the newspaper.

Page submitted that editorial pages must balance their mission to be provocative with their need to be sensitive. As only the second full-time black reporter hired by the Tribune, Page witnessed the origins of newsroom diversity in the urban riots that suddenly created a demand for reporters and photographers who would not be conspicuous.

Diversity is not about desegregation, assimilation, or the "melting pet," he said, but rather "cultural sharing." His general guideline: "When in doubt, let it out" -- that is, give voice to a perspective and be prepared to defend it.

It is an ongoing process, Finneman said, and one that rests with individual newspapers within their own communities.

NCEW member Michael Zuzel is an editorial writer for The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash.