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A few years ago, I walked into a dressing room, backstage from a pageant. It was one of the first I had ever covered. I watched as a mother combed mascara through the lashes of her little girl, a baby no more than 2 months old who was about to go on stage and compete.

Pageants are often under fire for reasons just like that. It’s no secret that reporters are often placed under fire alongside the work they cover. I figured it’d happen again when I covered another pageant north of Harrisonburg this week. I’ve already gotten a handful of comments on this story, a feature that ran in Monday’s Daily News Record (Little Miss Broadway, Feb. 18).

Our readers continue to amaze me. Their response is invaluable. I so regularly receive such insightful, articulate messages. Most (minus the outright “you know what, you’re stupid!” comments) seem to offer sincere feedback.

The response I got with this latest story asserted that the mere presence of an article about the pageant encourages them, which may or may not be a good thing considering where you stand on the whole ordeal. Without debating the merits of the pageant itself, I wonder what in a reader’s mind leads them to feel that every story is an endorsement.
I want to understand why so many readers, when they see an issue or problem or concern or, in this case, something that will occasionally prove to be controversial, like the pageant, will argue that the solution is to not cover the issues, problem, concern, whatever.
If journalists have any bias, it’s towards the belief that those things deserve more press, more room, more attention … never less.

I get similar reader responses anytime I write with less than rays of sunshine. Why is that?