TODAY'S LETTERS: 'Quotegate' At Medill, Keller Defends McCain Story, Five Years of Embeds

By: E&P Staff Readers wrote in about 'Quotegate' at Medill, The New York Times' McCain story and five years of embedded journalists in Iraq.

'Quotegate' at Medill Subsides -- But Questions Remain
Why would e-mails prove his case? Were they from the students quoted and do they contain the quotes he used?

The Washington Post today said Lavine offered a link to a video and said the quotes were in the video, but the newspaper also reported that a student found that the quotes were not actually in the video. Would the missing e-mails somehow make the quotes pop up in the already completed videos? Did the Post make an error? Did the student quoted by the Post lie?

Why is public relations not subject to journalistic standards? Don't you also train public relations students? Do you make fun of the journalism students in the public relations classes for demanding attribution? Do you think good public relations includes non-attribution? (I'm pretending here that the quotes are not made up.) Does the public accept that public relations is held to a lower standard, or does the public beware of public relations because it has lower standards? He who spins wins only until the humble and unwashed facts make an unwelcome appearance.--Al Marsh, MSJ, Medill 1970

Alton K. Marsh
Senior Editor
AOPA Pilot
Frederick, Md.

Keller Defends Story on NPR
The NYT is a disgrace. Do they still wonder why readership is down?

It?s underhanded crap like this that discredits them.
Liberal rag.

John Belcher
Campbell, Calif.

Five Years Ago 'Embeds' Got Ready for War Duty in Iraq: How Did That Work Out?
It's hard to stomach Sidney Schanberg's pontification on "the war reporter's higher calling" knowing that he answered his own higher calling by helping to conceal America's secret bombing of Cambodia.

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky have documented Schanberg's refusal to report the massive U.S. atrocities in Cambodia ("Manufacturing Consent" pages 275-279). Schanberg, working for the New York Times, was "the main U.S. reporter in Phnom Penh in 1973."

Although hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees fled into the city from the bombed countryside, Schanberg never bothered to interview any of them.

Schanberg's refusal to cover the enormity of the bombing helped keep the American public in the dark and allowed the U.S. government to continue its massive crimes without interference.

Media experts aware of history shouldn't provide a perch for hypocrites to preen their feathers.

Michael Harris
Fish Creek, Wisc.



N.Y. 'Daily News' Orders 15-Tower Triplewide Press from KBA
While we're not in the same league as the New York Daily News, we were one of the first, if not the first, metro papers to run color on every page. We went live on August 15, 2004, with two RegioMAN presses, which are configured with six towers each. We can print two 48 page products with color on every page or one 64 page product with color on every page. Since our start up we've been running color on every page except one page that has a crossword puzzle.

Marty Black
Production Director
The Honolulu Advertiser