LETTERS: Froomkin Kerfluffle Continues

By: E&P Staff Readers weigh in on the debate over Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing column, and several offer stinging indictments of a recent speech given by Jim Boyd, the Star-Tribune's deputy editorial page editor and key enemy of conservatives everywhere.

***

Froomkin Kerfluffle

Re: Print vs. Online Battle at 'Wash Post' with Froomkin in Middle

Sheesh! You know, it's like we woke up one morning in January of 2000 and found ourselves on the Planet of the Apes.

Your article on the inexplicable attacks on Dan Froomkin included the following statement by Deborah Howell, the new Ombudsman: "They're afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter." Huh?

Maybe they're just afraid that readers will think, period. Thinking can lead to all sorts of mayhem and hooliganism.

John Harris, the WP Politics Editor said that the alleged confusion, (which appears to exist largely in his and the White House reporters' imaginations), "dilutes our only asset -- our credibility".

Egad. They've precious little enough of that after the mess with Woodward and their own lack of follow up on the most serious issues facing the nation. One stern look from the President and they cower in their chairs. Joe Biden gets so much ink you'd think he was Harry Reid.

This is precisely why readers are turning away from the nation's most important newspapers. The Post's own failings strain their credulity, not the title of Dan Froomkin's column.

Martha Sterling-Golden
Maine

***

Jim Boyd Reaction

Re: Standing Up to 'Pushback' On the Editorial Page

E&P's headline skews reality in a revealing way: "Standing Up to 'Pushback' on the Editorial Page." "Pushback?" Nah. Boyd is not "standing up" to anything, let along "pushback." Rather he refutes his critics' irrefutable facts with bile and bullying untruths. While he is entitled to his opinions, he is not entitled to his facts.

Boyd claims not to be a partisan bombthrower. Bizarre. Inky facts belie his bogus claim. Savvy conservatives, including the bloggers at Time 's top-rated weblog, PowerLine, know him to be an over-the-top, angry, fiery, usually fact-challenged spokesman. Says one, he could wrote DNC's truth-twisting talking points which, in real life, are recycled with regularity on his editorial pages.

It is no accident Boyd's Star Tribune is described by The Wall Street Journal's John Fund as "one of the most left-wing newspapers in the nation." One look at its editorials, its "institutional voice," proves the tag is richly deserved. Boyd, along with a stable of ardent liberals on the editorial board, make that so. Diversity of opinion is a rarity there. Ex-U.S. Senator Rudy Boschwitz (R-MN) observed it makes their editorial meetings short and sweet, such is total agreement.

E&P's deck for "Shoptalk" asserts incorrectly that Boyd "describes the protest" of his liberal slants. Look again. Not so. Not a word about the hefty substance of the reader protests, only antipathy toward them.

Of the dark art of smear Boyd is past master. He hurls ad homimen smears with the best of the left, in a class with Dowd and Ivins on their better days. The truth-telling fellas at PowerLineblog "harass" him, he says, without explanation, but it's more than that. PowerLine in excruciating detail deconstructs Boyd's flights of partisan fancy. In short, they make him look foolish. My oh my, how that must irritate this part-time demagogue in the almighty press.

Boyd's antipathy for all things remotely conservative results in spewing vile stuff, not reasoned argument. His "exhaustive research [and] a willingness to tell truth to power," as the loony tunes award citation claims, is a crock. It fails the giggle test among legions who do not share in Boyd's leftist fantasyland.

Shame on the American Academy of Diplomacy for getting it so wrong, so ironically wrong, about Boyd, painting him as a mythic heroic figure in journalism, when he is clearly a blight on that trade, a poster boy for partisan flackery. Like Dan Rather, he is a purveyor of falsehoods when it suits his partisan purposes.

Gary Larson

***

It is a sad day when Jim Boyd is given an award for non-partisanship. Editorial writing is part of journalism. Americans know that editorials are not news and are more likely to be the results of the political leanings of the editors. Distortions, half-truths, omissions and lies fill editorial and opinion pages each morning, yet are constitutionally protected.

A majority of Americans shake their heads at the editorials written in their newspaper, but it is an agreement with the newspaper and subscriber that these editorials are bias. Journalism has sunk to a new low to try to fool readers that a liberal, left-wing editorial writer like Jim Boyd is a non-partisan. There is praise for everyone who speaks "truth to power" against the Republicans in power, but when honest, hardworking Americans use their only outlet (the Internet) to speak "truth to power" against journalists, editorial writers, and television personalities, they are called "harassers".

The condescending, victimized, nasty tone of Jim Boyd towards the freedom of speech exercised by people who disagree with him is symbolic of the decline of the mainstream media. Americans do not consider the MSM the final word in truth, in fact, it seems each day the lies and partisanship of the supposed truth-tellers are exposed. When you have the next big symposium on why readership is declining, let topic #1 be the treatment of dissent by editorial writers. The Internet is the better mousetrap: it was created out of necessity because the first mousetrap, the MSM, failed miserably.

Karen Mango
Hampton Cove, Ala.

***

Why I left the Strib

Mr. Boyd: You will find my name among the legions of former subscribers to your paper. My wife misses your coupons but, regardless, we persevere because we cannot in good conscience lend financial support to a publication which begins from the assumption that America is wrong.

Your acceptance speech for you award was an interesting study in rhetoric. It's a funny thing about the Left. They devise all these awards and give them to each other as a measure of their ideological purity.

Purity notwithstanding, when your paper becomes a community Shopper you will be able to point at the radical religious right and proclaim they killed you.

It will be a self-inflicted wound. If you cannot find a way to temper your editorial biases you will continue to lose market share. I would share my comments with you for retaining market share but they would be so contrary to your instincts that you would show me the door.

I won't waste my time. I'll continue to get my news from cable, talk radio and the Internet -- where both sides of the argument are laid out for circumspection.

A former subscriber,

Jerry Lindberg

***

Non-Profit Newspapers

The following is in response to Joe Mathewson's popular column in which the author, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, banker, and corporate lawyer, argues for a radical re-thinking of the economics of American newspapers, and outlines several scenarios for going the non-profit route.

Where can I sign on for this experiment? I work for Consumer Reports, which is doing very well, thank you, increasing in circulation and revenue on the newsstand, on the Web and on TV as a not-for-profit publication of Consumers Union since 1936. Combined latest circulation - about 7 million.

Mari McQueen
Sr. Editor
Consumer Reports

***

Shamelful NY Times Blogs Analysis

Re: 'NY Times' Sunday Preview: Conservative Blogs Rock!

Your article hyping Matt Stoller's analytical observations about liberal/conservative blogs was dumb and wildly off base. After all, liberal Stoller was the only source for the entire New York Times article! No wonder you have no clue about liberal media bias.

Conservatives blogs are not in lock step with the GOP! On the contrary, they are highly critical. Does the Harriet Miers saga ring a bell? Conservative blogs are not hyped by a conservative media infrastructure either. Are you clueless?

Do you not think MSNBC's Chris Mathews and Keith Olberman are not passing on the moronic thoughts and conspiracies of the lefty blogs? Are you nuts? Do you not think Al Franken and the moonbats at Air America radio are not promoting liberal blogs? What a joke!

I challenge you to do your own research. Read conservative blogs HughHewitt.com, CaptainsQuarters.com, Powerlineblog.com, MichelleMalkin.com and RedState.org for two weeks and then compare your thoughts while reading liberal blogs DailyKos.com, DemocraticUnderground.com, HuffingtonPost.com and Atrios.blogspot.com.

My guess is that you will see conservatives offering ideas and thoughtful insight and criticism of mainstream media and President Bush and other conservatives. With the liberal blogs you'll get a R-rated bombardment of obscenities laced with hatred for conservatives and President Bush, wild-eyed conspiracy theories and trumpeting of those who can hate Bush the most. It could not be any clearer of the difference between the two blogging ideologies.

Kevin Punsky
Jacksonville, Fla.

***

Political Influence on PBS

I love your columns. I was hoping you might address this question: I'm appalled at how silent the mainstream opinion media is about the clear use of taxpayer money for the benefit of the White House and one political party, i.e., the public's broadcasting network, PBS. Shouldn't there be outrage on every hometown editorial page for this waste of tax money?

My opinion is that there is no outrage because the facts are clear: Opinion media in the country -- not just talk radio -- is overwhelmingly dominated by partisan Republican Party supporters. Those partisans will never allow law-breaking and misuse of taxpayer funds for the party's goals to break the glass ceiling of what becomes a "controversy" in this country anymore. As a journalist, I don't give a professional crap about any political party. But there used to be a time when media outlets' separate news and opinion work was driven by the worthy, nonpartisan and general idea of the "public's best interest" -- the borrowed standard of journalism by, of and for the people.

That concept is dead today today.

John Parker
Features Writer
Southwestern Publishing
Oklahoma City, Okla.