The e-mailbag: Entertainment Tonight division
August 5th, 2008, 8:52 am · Post a Comment · posted by madisontaylor
A light bag of e-mail this week includes a criticism of how we covered an entertainment subject this year, an observation about a comment in one of our entertainment stories and another reader unhappy with the advertising department’s cut in pages for our TV Times, which is as most might have guessed, an entertainment-related issue.
Yes, folks like entertainment. And we know that. Here’s what they had to say.
An unnamed reader sent this message via our tip line on TheTimesNews.com.
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“it is very disappointing the lack of coverage of the Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre this year compared to other events … the theatre relies greatly on these reviews.”
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There was no concerted effort or plan to cut back on coverage of the outdoor theater that produces “The Sword of Peace” and other great productions each summer out at Snow Camp. In fact, we devoted less to theater productions across the board this past summer. This was a staffing issue as much as anything else. Our company cut a position late last summer in our Accent Department leaving it as a staff with two full-time writers who also design layout pages. There is a part-time typist as well as a fairly consistent flow of college interns.
That by itself ensures that we can’t get to everything the way we used to. Charity Apple and Brian Rose can only work so many hours each day — and believe me they spend lots of long days here just trying to keep their heads above water.
Things were complicated more this year by the terminal illness and passing of Brian’s wife Cathy. There simply were not enough hours or staff to handle the workload.
On the plus side it’s good to know that our theater reviews are read and appreciated. Thanks.
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While Charity was recently out with an illness, our news reporter Keren Rivas wrote a story about the showing of “Gone with the Wind” at the Paramount Theater. A reader took issue with a quote in the story, not the story itself. Here’s what she had to say.
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“I am a 30-something African American woman who enjoys the major storyline/love story in Gone With The Wind. When I read about the movie being shown at the Paramount in the today’s paper— the fourth paragraph threw me for a loop. When you mentioned that Gone with the Wind “…shows the good times prior to the War” my heart stopped. Some of my ancestors were slaves during those “good times” you wrote about. But I guess to the past commander of The Sons of the Confederate Veterans, Al Boswell, those were “good times”.
“Needless to say, I will not be attending the screening.”
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I share this reader’s concern about the lack of complete understanding of this chapter of our nation’s history. Slavery has shaped this nation’s future perhaps like no other issue. Until all people understand what this abomination really meant I fear we’ll never be truly be united as a country.
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And I got this message from Mary Futrell who has written before about issues involving the Times-News. Here’s the latest.
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“Please restore the late night TV pages and cut somewhere else. The entire editorial page could go.”
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I wrote Mrs. Futrell back and let her know that I wouldn’t mind eliminating the opinion page myself but I doubted our owners would care much for that.
