Offended p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

Fort Lauderdale alternative newspaper's 'spoof' angers French Canadians; editor unapologetic; protest march called off sp.

XS MAGAZINE'S RECENT second annual spoof of French Canadian tourists in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., provoked an angry fight that swept up the Sun-Sentinel Co., an area French-language newspaper, and a Canadian member of Parliament.
Though the contretemps was defused in time to stop a planned Jan. 22 march on the headquarters of the Sun-Sentinel newspaper, the editor of XS remains unapologetic and French Canadians, according to an executive with the Hollywood, Fla.-based French-language paper Le Soleil de la Floride, remain offended.
At the center of the controversy was a 15-page calendar published in the weekly XS that portrayed French Canadians as a particularly penny-pinching and tasteless breed of tourists whose beach wear tends to too-small Speedo trunks that emphasize bulging bellies and bad sunburns. French Canadian tourists, the feature said, are "ugly, fat and cheap."
The feature was entitled, "Ribbit, Ribbit: Frogs return with new crop from the harvest of shame."
A similar, though much shorter, feature ran last year in XS, an "alternative" newspaper that was created a few years ago by the Sun-Sentinel Co., publishers of the Sun-Sentinel and a subsidiary of Tribune Co. of Chicago.
While the 1992 feature provoked protests ? including a package of excrement sent anonymously to the newsroom ? it was nothing like the firestorm provoked by the calendar.
Canadian newspapers, especially in Quebec, published reaction on their front pages. Canadian Broadcast Corp. News and other broadcast media aired stories about the controversy.
Closer to home, Le Soleil organized a protest that included a visit by Vincent Della Noce, a Canadian MP from Montreal, and that was to include a march on the Sun-Sentinel.
Le Soleil marketing director Barry Sacharow said his paper ? a 65,000- paid-circulation monthly heavily devoted to entertainment and tourism ? became involved because French Canadian tourists and residents were "feeling isolated" by the ethnic slurs.
Sacharow called off the planned march on the Sun-Sentinel building after a telephone call from Mitch Golub, Sun-Sentinel development manager.
"As far as we're concerned the issue is over," Golub said in a prepared statement that, by agreement, was released by Le Soleil. "We do not apologize for the article. We are sorry, however, if anyone was personally offended or perceived it to be an ethnic slur. The article was meant in the spirit of humor and nothing else."
Sacharow said he accepted the "qualified apology . . . in the spirit of compromise."
In a press release, Sacharow also said that Golub had privately assured him "that the [French Canadian] community will not be singled out for ridicule again next year."
For his part, Golub said he only told Sacharow, based on conversation with XS editor and publisher Stephen Wis-sink, that the paper was unlikely to crank up yet another French Canadian tourist spoof for a third year.
"That would get kind of boring," Golub said. "In terms of an assurance, obviously I cannot give [Sacharow] any assurances or make any assurances on editorial. This is Steve Wissink's area."
XS editor and publisher Wissink says he is not at all apologetic about the feature.
"It was a spoof, a lampoon," he said. "It was not ill-intentioned or anything like that."
Wissink said he was particularly irked that the feature was being criticized as an ethnic slur.
"We admitted in the story ? this is what really bugs me about all this ? that these were unfair, unflattering stereotypes," Wissink said.
French Canadians were singled out simply because "they represent all that is annoying" about the annual winter tidal wave of tourists from frosty climes, he said.
Wissink said the protests against XS and him personally were "mean-spirited."
"You can call [the feature] 'tasteless.' OK, I can buy that for this sort of thing, but when they started calling us racist" it was too much, Wissink said.
He also accused Le Soleil of capitalizing on the feature to drum up publicity for itself, and trying to get him fired.
Look who's talking, Le Soleil's Sacharow countered.
"They say in the article, 'We never got such good publicity as we did last year,' " Sacharow said. "Part of what was perceived by the community was that the attack was definitely motivated by [a desire for] publicity."
As for organizing the protests, Sacharow said, "Part of my job is to protect the community as well as to sell to the community. This was not something we initiated ? this was something that fell on our shoulders."