MONDAY'S LETTERS: Improving Papers So They Can Survive, Journos and Iraq, Downie's 'Excessive Chutzpah'

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, some more suggestions for how to improve newspapers so that they survive, journalists' role in the Iraq war, and Len Downie's "excessive chutzpah."

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Giving Readers What They Want


Loved [Mark Moore's] column in Editor & Publisher. I left the business 12 years ago after 22 years in newspapers. Every one of your points is right on the mark. I?ll add a few of my own:

-- Give more news space to churches, which get short shrift.

-- Give subscribers a dry newspaper on rainy days.

-- Answer the phone when it rings without resorting to that annoying ?Press 1, Press 2, Press 4?? recording.

-- No biased coverage! Bias is rampant in newsrooms.

Joan Stewart
Port Washington, Wis.



Read your article about declining newspaper circulation with GREAT interest. For the most part you are correct in your assessment. BUT ... there's more and, as a former newspaperman (I still write three syndicated columns) I know something about the situation.

Though newspapers are always, always accused of being either in the pocket of the right or left, liberalism has virtually taken over. I live outside Los Angeles and for more than 16 years have been appalled by the LA Times' editorial decisions. On page one, for example, there's ALWAYS (almost) a major piece about "human rights," woman's rights, homosexuality, minorities and college admissions, etc. They have the idea that people really CARE about this 24/7. Worse, their coverage of the Iraq war is ludicrous. Instead of sending people who are VETERANS, who know what's really a story and what isn't, they send people with professed pacifistic leanings. That's OK ... except the editors refuse to let unbiased professionalism interfere with TRUTH. ...

Sir, they can fool the public just so long. After a while, even the "IQ challenged" realize they're NOT getting "straight" news. Of course the Internet, TV and other news sources have taken a bite out of most paper's circulation. The REAL issue, however, is BIAS and hiring practices skewed NOT toward the best and brightest but the color of a man's skin. The many papers that "emulate" the Times and "stack" their newsroom with minorities instead of the best people DESERVE what they get.

Zane Binder
Corona, Calif.

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When a Duck Is a Duck

Since when has this been de facto?: "And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do." Have we been dreaming all these years that the media was pointing out a duck when they saw one, because that was what they were supposed to do? Or was it simply the golden goose calling the gander oily?

Richard Neubert
Falls Church, Va.

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The Press and Iraq


One cannot support the troops without supporting the mission. The press continues to treat the war as a domestic issue and like McNamara, keeps a tally of the war's progress by body count. There are no successes, no improvements, no progress.

As revealed on your own pages, journalists are afraid to go many places. I remember journalists in Vietnam, eating their Thai pepper soup at the Saigon Country Club, refusing to go out into the field. (Garrick Utley and Dan Rather to mention a few)

Had this gaggle of press been reporting on WWII, one can only imagine how the reporting would be from Iwo Jima or Normandy! ?6,800 American Troops Killed.? Editorials would claim it wasn?t worth the cost for 8 sq. miles of volcanic rock. ?Allied Troops Kill 15,000 French Civilians in D-Day Bombing!? Editorials would be calling for investigations of why we were killing so many civilians, especially our friends.

If this war is lost, it won?t be the fault of either Bush or the troops, but a press that has no sense of balance or history.

H. Michael Sarkisian
Sacramento, Calif.

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Downie and the New 'Wash Post'

[Washington Post Editor Len] Downie has chiefly proved himself in his memo to be a master of organization-speak and cliche. I think it takes excessive chutzpah to compare himself with Ben Bradlee.

Karl P. Koenig