MONDAY'S LETTERS: Hirschman in the 'Tin Foil Hat Brigade?', Front Page Ads

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, readers respond to David Hirschman's suggestions for how the Bush Administration could revamp the White House Press Room, a comment on Joe Strupp's column about ads on the front pages of newspapers, and a reader wonders why anyone still listens to Ann Coulter.


***

On Hirschman's Suggestions for the White House Press Room

Why the cynicism and loathing about EVERYTHING the Bush Administration does? Are you that blinded by hatred that you think even the revamping of the press room is a "conspiracy?"

Mark Eichenlaub



I figured they would supply every one with electronic collars so they could deselect certain questions in real time. As the collar constricted, cutting off the air supply, the cameras could be refocused so no one would see them twitching in the aisle ...

Jim Harris



Good for Karl Rove. Anything he can do to muzzle you liberal morons is a great thing for this country!

Matthew Gaouette



I do hope this article was tongue in cheek. If it is, then it's funny and [David Hirschman] can congratulate [himself].

If [he was] serious then [he's] joined the tin foil hat brigrade. After covering news in Europe and Asia for over 50 years I figuered I had read and seen it all. [Hirschman], well [he is] different for sure. Ignorant, paranoid and just plain clueless. Better stay in la la land of Washington DC. [He] would never make it on a real news beat.

Alexis Cooper



So now BushCo has a conspiracy going to make the White House Press Corps "uncomfortable?"

You people truly have lost it. Let me guess, you wear a tin foil hat too to keep Rove from reading your thoughts right?

Here's a bulletin for you, Einstein, Bush probably sees the press corps as pretty much just irrelevant, much as most of the rest of us feel about you.

Remember, you guys actually think Helen Thomas is a "balanced" reporter. Bah.

Michael Redden


***

Joe Strupp is right, of course. There is no provision in the Journalists' Book of Laws that prohbits ads on the front page. And no valid reason, apart from aesthetics violated by too-garish design or near pornography, why they should not be displayed there. USA Today, certainly, has not suffered graphically or economically from its placement of small ads on page 1.

Ads were not considered inappropriate on front pages in the Great Depression, and the motive then, as it should be now for some, is obvious.

Magazine publishers will almost certainly follow suit if newspapers adapt to advertisers' "violation" of their page 1 journalistic "tradition."

Wes Pedersen
Chevy Chase, Md.


***

Praising the Philadelphia Coalition

I read Jim Prince?s letter in the August issue of E&P, and I have to say I agree with much of what he had to say.

The first-ever prosecution by the state of Mississippi involving the Ku Klux Klan?s June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Andy Goodman and Mickey Schwerner wouldn?t have happened without the good people of Neshoba County seeking and demanding justice.

Prince and Leroy Clemons together chaired the Philadelphia Coalition, a multi-racial citizens? group that formed in 2004 (with the help of Susan Glisson, executive director of the Institute for Racial Reconciliation) and called for prosecution of this case. In early 2005, a Neshoba County grand jury indicted Edgar Ray Killen for orchestrating the killings.

Attorney General Jim Hood credited his September 2004 meeting with the coalition, where he talked with Goodman?s mother and brother as helping convince him the case should go forward.

Stanley Dearman, the retired editor of The Neshoba Democrat, serves as a courageous example of what weekly newspaper editors should be. Since 1989, he has called for the prosecution of these killings -- killings that still bring tears to his eyes.

Despite impossible odds, prosecutors and investigators persisted. And the jurors who convicted Edgar Ray Killen on the 41st anniversary of the killings deserve plenty of credit as well.

I have no doubt in my mind this case would have never wound up in court if not for Prince, Dearman, the coalition and so many others, including the families of those slain, who never gave up believing justice would be done one day.

What happened in Philadelphia in the summer of 2005 continues to serve as an example for this state and this nation as we continue to move toward redemption.

Jerry Mitchell
Reporter
The Clarion-Ledger
Jackson, Miss.


***

Coulter Commentary

Is it beyond me what people see in Ann Coulter and why they give her any attention. She is a frustrated 50 yr old virgin with no marriage prospects in sight and a childish grudge against society. If someone agreed 99% with her, she would emphasize that 1% and find something to insult them with. She is a child in a woman's body. But I suppose bloggers and those whom Ann dumps on (everybody in the known universe at one time or another) need someone to rant about. Come to think of it ... they need a life as much as Coulter.

Rusty Newberry
Leesburg Va.



Has anyone else ever noticed that when directly faced with criticism of her mystical capacity to divine the hearts, souls, and marriages of the 9/11 widows and families, Ann Coulter trots out what has become for her the pat lament about how "That was not my point, blah, blah, blah ..." Even her staunch defenders ditto with the similar preface of "That was not the point she was making, blah, blah, blah ..."

Perhaps this reveals Coulter is in serious need of improving her writing skills and should learn to convey her viewpoint with more clarity and intelligence. One good place to start would be for her to become more responsible and professional in organizing data. Had she only been polite or civil enough to have requested interviews with the families, she could have spoken directly with them and gotten an honest and accurate portrayal of these individuals. Instead she preferred to make macabre jokes of their lives and to libelously lump them into her grand scheme of dreams she views as reality.

Coulter's simplistic ability at writing what she assumes to be witty slams reveals what is at most, a level of humor the likes of which usually results in eliciting peals of slack-jawed guffaw from adolescent males.

As for her rant against evolution, Ms.Coulter herself is sufficient proof that some mammals are indeed related to reptiles.

Eugene King
San Diego, Calif.


***

Editorials Not Hard Enough on Iraq

More than three years after the Iraq killing and U.S. occupation began, newspapers across the United States remain strangely silent about this pressing issue on the minds of millions of Americans. What is going on here? A conspiracy theorist might say U.S. newspapers are complicit in the Iraq conflict.

Are newspaper editorial pages afraid of angering their readers if they take a stand? Fear is hardly the hallmark of a good newspaper. What's that statement about newspapers being leaders in their communities?

Are the editorial departments unclear on the subtleties and complexities of the conflict? They can't figure out what to say, in other words? I don't buy it. Newspapers are ideally suited to develop complex arguments.

Are the editorials so focused on local news nowadays that an international issue isn't on their radars? Again, what could be more local than the troops shipping out from towns and cities nationwide? And, in some cases, dying, or coming home mangled.

Are newspapers afraid of losing subscribers if they voice a controversial opinion? Money. Lost revenue. Lost circulation. Is that it? If so, it's the sorriest of rationales, given how high a price so many young Americans are paying in Iraq. A straightforward editorial opinion is cheap, by comparison.

James H. Maish
Tucson, Ariz.