LETTERS: Bilal Hussein, Endorsing Clinton, Reporting About Mormons

By: E&P Staff Readers wrote in about Bilal Hussein, a gay paper endorsing Clinton, finding balance when reporting about faith, Chelsea Clinton and questionable quotes from one of our articles.


'Harper's' Probes Case of Jailed AP Photog in Iraq
Unfortunately, E&P once again gets its head handed to it and yet another "Left Wing" chalk-mark because the "E&P Staff" didn't check who Scott Horton was. Since Horton is an obvious partisan and, worse yet, worked for the law firm which represents Hussein, the E&P article is just another step downward from E&P's previously respected position in the media community. What is going on, folks? Isn't there something to be said for being a paragon of neutrality and excellence, as opposed to proudly displaying one's partisan feathers? Is journalism a profession or is it really an outlet for narcissism and epater le Bourgoisie? Break out the whips and oars, please.

Mike Sigman
Durango, Colo.

Major Gay Paper Endorses Clinton -- Despite Big Reservations
As the elections are coming up, I have one question for the canidates in the way of gay marrage. Why is it that a hetrosexual person can marry, and divorce 10 times, abuse their wife and kids and marry again, even death row inmates have the right to marry who they love and I don't.

If I have to obey the same laws and pay the same taxs, the is it not only fare that I have the same rights as the rest of Americans.

Was this country not founded under a law of seperation of church and state? If so, then what gives the government the right to say I can't get married for moral reasons. SAME LAWS SAME TAXES.....SAME RIGHTS.

Jeremy Lee Ham.
Jackson Tenn.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: Finding Balance in Reporting About Mormons
I, too have noticed a bizarre religious angle on reporting about presidential candidate Mitt Romney. It takes a lot more effort to try to get a story right than to simply quote an eager anti-Mormon source. I hope journalists will take the extra effort to at least put some semblance of balance in their reporting related to Mormons. As is, sometimes articles end up sounding like journalists have some sort of axe to grind and it really calls into question the credibility of the article and the publication it appears in. The Mormons I've known have been pretty normal, nice people but you would think they're all psychos if all you know about them is from the media.

Solomon T

Dennis Kucinich
Thanks for keeping your readers up on the latest, breathless pronouncements by the Dennis Kucinich wing of the media, namely Norman Solomon and his vast army of consumers. (Solomon once opined within my hearing that Anthony Lewis of The Times was too right-wing, because he supported Clinton's bombing campaign in the Balkans.)

I'm sure media-criticism consumers want to know what these influential people are doing all the time - as opposed, to the 'awards' given out by the Media Research Center, by way of instructive contrast.

We all know that Left thinkers have a lien on the future, and are therefore more important and evolved than people on 'the right' . . . therefore E&P is ideologically correct in keeping its head in the sand with regard to right-wing media critics and their case. I mean, we know that. It's been proved historically and scientifically and everything.

Mark Richard
Columbus, Ohio

Chelsea Clinton Turns Down Interview Request -- from Pint-sized Reporter
I was a kid reporter, too, just a few years older than Sydney Rieckoff, when John Barrymore, one of acting's all-time greats, came to Sioux City, Iowa, on tour. This was in the late 1930s and Barrymore, the "Great Profile" of films as well as theater, was in the midst of a scandal that was making major tabloid headlines.

I wanted an interview for my high school paper, and, with two other wouldbe journalists, braced him the lobby of Sioux City's Orpheum theater. His publicist tried to shoo us away, but Barrymore insisted on talking with us. There was no consdescension. We were treated as adults by Barrymore, and for nearly a half an hour. It was one of the nicest things anyone of prominence could have done a youngster.

A pity that Chelsea Clinton could not have spared a few minutes to make the young reporter's day, and create an enduring memory.

Wes Pedersen
Chevy Chase, Md.

Islamic Group Seeks Right To Rebut Columnist's Book
Your article "Islamic Group Seeks Right To Rebut Columnist's Book" contains the following:

"'The Times -- one of Steyn's client newspapers -- also said the excerpts in Maclean's compared Muslims to Native Americans in the Old West who infiltrated "the white cities" and suggested many Muslims are "hot for jihad" and favor a "bloody" war against the West.'"

The use of quotation marks around the phrase "the white cities" implies that they are my words from my article. In fact, if you go to the Maclean's piece you will find no such phrase. Which isn't surprising, because it would be a crappy and inaccurate designation more appropriate to my lazier opponents' crude reductio of my argument rather than anything you will find in my book.

I am surprised that, on a story which is already the subject of legal action, Editor & Publisher chose not to check the published version of the article directly. However, I trust you will print a clarification as soon as possible.

Mark Steyn