A story in Thursday’s paper, headlined “Disrobing for dollars: Exotic dancers seek Louisville gigs about now for the big bucks,” generated a lot of feedback from readers, most of it negative. The story was accompanied on the front page by a photo of two clothed exotic dancers taking a break on the stage of a Louisville nightclub. Inside was a second photo, showing a dancer quoted in the story wearing slightly more clothing than a skimpy bathing suit.
More than two dozen readers contacted us to complain about the story. Most of the complaints had two themes:
1. We shouldn’t write about strip clubs or other things that reflected "negatively" on Kentucky, especially during Derby week.
2. We shouldn’t have put the story and photo on the front page where children might read it, especially because newspapers are used in schools.
One of the newsroom editors who planned this year’s Derby coverage, Dori Hjalmarson, explained it well in this response to an angry reader’s e-mail:
"I think your points about the play of the story — centerpiece with color photos on the front page — are valid. We did consider those points before printing the story, and several people in our newsroom raised the same concerns you did: that children who read this newspaper should be shielded from the sex industry and that the story was written in a way that made no moral distinction between stripping and other businesses.
"But the story was reflecting reality: The sex industry — a big-money business — follows major entertainment events like the Super Bowl, NASCAR and, yes, the Kentucky Derby. Strip clubs are legal; they pay taxes; they are part of the business boom that comes to Louisville every year. We are not the first newspaper to record this phenomenon. …
"I have to tell you it disturbs me that we do not get nearly the outraged response when we put far more disturbing news on the front page — news such as that of soldiers dying, children being abused in foster care, the elderly killed by their caretakers. People seem to be far more uncomfortable telling their children about legal activities such as stripping than they are with the true suffering of their fellow human beings.
"That said, you are right in that we could have done the stripper story differently. We could have placed it inside the newspaper without full-color photos; we could have written the story in a way that draws a distinction between stripping and other more seemly businesses. We’re not idiots; we’re not callous. We considered the feelings of others before we acted. I believe the story we printed is a valid one, even if our presentation of it offended some people."
Whether or not you agree with our decision to publish “Disrobing for dollars,” or the way it was presented, one thing is for sure: It inspired a spirited debate. And that’s a good thing.
Marilyn Thompson, Editor
Tom Eblen, Managing Editor
An earlier posting, “Writing About Ourselves”, discussed cutbacks in the Herald-Leader’s coverage and how cost-saving measures are necessary to cope with the “cataclysmic change” in the newspaper business.
Every day, the Herald-Leader declines to cover major events. Each story or column takes the place of competing material. The editors must discuss these alternatives on a daily basis and pass on publishing many worthwhile items.
With this background, the decision to devote significant space and prominence to strippers seems odd. If this story is how the Herald-Leader chooses to use its limited resources, then alternative news channels become more attractive to those who want to know what’s happening in the world.
Also odd is the editorial comment “it disturbs me that we do not get nearly the outraged response when we put far more disturbing news on the front page…such as…soldiers dying…” Reading about such subjects is why people buy newspapers, even if the topics are tragic. Complaining to the editors that the paper is covering unhappy events would not make sense. On the hand, strippers are not particularly important and the paper would have better served its readers by devoting the space to something more worthwhile.
Would the H-L accept advertising from the local strip clubs that contained color photos of women in pasties? It’s a legal activity, right? Same question would apply to photos of people smoking cigarettes — hasn’t the media in general eschewed the glamorization of smoking by removing images of it from our society?