FRIDAY LETTERS: Jeers for Richard Cohen, Analysis of the Chris Graff Firing

By: E&P Staff Today's letters include jeers for Richard Cohen, analysis of the Chris Graff firing in Vermont and a coda to the story of a Congressional candidate who faked up a picture of Iraq for his website.

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Three cheers for your column on Richard Cohen, more for him as an example than a single case. So many of us grew very tired of having an onslaught of typing and talking heads insult us on our dissent from the "invade Iraq" march as fools, weaklings, or even traitors for questioning this most pathetically unjustified war. We know also very well that were the shoe on the other foot, and had "liberal" (in this case "liberal" meaning rational) arguments proven wrong, the pundits would be screaming like hounds after a fox for us to apologize. But then, as one of my favorite writers once said, truly dissenting views go from being rejected as "paranoid conspiracy theories" to being dismissed as "obvious and boring old news" without ever having reached the front page.

Jeff S.
Atlanta, GA

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I just finished reading assorted articles on the firing of Chris Graff. One thing nobody seemed to be hitting on is: The Associated Press is a member-owned organization. Every newspaper, radio and TV station that is a member of the AP is also an owner. Seems to me if I owned a business and one of my managers fired a subordinate, I'd ask why. And if I didn't get a satisfactory answer, I *would* get a new manager.

Seems to me the owners of the AP -- i.e., the newspapers, etc. -- have that same right as any owners to say to Larry Lalughlin or whomever, "Tell me exactly what happened, or get out." As a former, long-ago editor/reporter for The Associated Press, and recently retired after nearly 40 years as a newsman with an AP member (The Idaho Statesman in Boise, Idaho), I have been saddened over the years to see the news service in a gradual decline, but this step appears to be a major leap into the abyss rather than a continuation of the gradual erosion.

I hope E&P will keep following it, and that somewhere there is a newspaper, or newspaper publisher, with enough guts to strongly remind the AP managers that, as an owner, it/he/she has a right and an obligation to know exactly what happened to an employee, namely Chris Graff.

Gordon R. Peterson
Emmett, ID

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After reading your article (Congressional Candidate Slams Press Coverage of Iraq -- With Bogus Photo) I went to Kaloogian's website but it appears to be overloaded based on the following hilarious message:

"We Appologize for the inconvience, but we are currently experiencing Extremly High bandwidth on this server, preventing the site from functioning at its full potental."

Mike Myers

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No one I've read has framed this issue in terms of a journalist doing an "ambush" of Scalia right after he attends church. I expect a lot of
readers would immediately pick up on this frame, but apparently E&P has not, for reasons I can surmise, nor have other MSM media blogs such as CBS Public Eye. I can imagine the reaction at such sites if a reporter were to come up to Justice Breyer after his attendance at temple and asked him questions implying that his judicial opinions are related to the historically left-leaning politics of American Jews, or to hostility to Christianity. I have a feeling there would be more focus on the agenda of the journalist than on the Justice.

Mark Richard
Columbus, Ohio

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It is a treat to read [Greg Mitchell's] perceptive writing. I've been a journalist for 22 years, and in my opinion what is missing more than anything is perspective. Most anyone can write a set of facts or a he-said, she-said article, but the hard part is to put the facts in proper perspective. I think that is what separates good and mediocre journalists because I think sources recognize such writing.

I read an article by Chris Hedges in the NY Times Sunday Magazine a couple of years ago, and I was so touched, I cut it out and put it in my Bible. All of the pseudo-Christians who bang the drum for war should be forced to read what he says.

Paul Fiorilla
Hoboken, NJ