WEDNESDAY'S LETTERS: Swift Reaction to Woodward Shocker

By: E&P Staff Today we take a look at several issues in the news, from the recent revelations that Bob Woodward may have more to say in the CIA leak investigation to the Los Angeles Times' perhaps unwise decision to drop its Outdoor section and much more. To have your letter published in this space, e-mail us at letters@editorandpublisher.com.

Re: Shocker: Bob Woodward Now Embroiled in Plame Scandal

We are all hoping you will do some investigative reporting on Woodward now, and let us all know why someone who helped bring down Karl Roves' hero, Richard Nixon, was allowed unprecedented White House access to power to write soft ball books. Please help journalism rid itself of these cancers like Woodward!

Josh Grobin

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Re: 'LA Times' Readers Protest Scheer Ouster

I've been reading Bob Scheer for four decades, starting with William Knowland's Oakland Tribune, to Ramparts Magazine, virtually the only media that got Vietnam right in the mid-'60s, to this past 13 years at the L.A. Times. There is little question that Bob got fired by a bean counter with no sense of what news is, and for Bob's politics, not for the beans, which he's been putting on the Times' table for years. Your publishing of the Tribune corporate spin is in serious need of balance.

Frank Smith
Bluff City, Kan.

Ed's Note: Scheer fans will be happy to read our report today that he has found a new home for his column with the San Francisco Chronicle.

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So Few Questions Asked

Re: Greg Mitchell's latest Pressing Issues column, "Kristof Proposes Two-Year Pullout in Iraq"

It will be hard for the nation's journalists to admit they were willingly duped into the Iraqi war. In the months leading up to the war, I watched amazed and horrified at the excitement the press (written and television) generated about the possibility of action. Hearst would have been proud: increase in viewers and readers, war added to a reporters' resume, look patriotic after 9/11. That is what depresses me most. So many journalists looked forward to embedding and so many editors and publishers looked forward to increased interest in their products. So few questions asked. Now almost 2,100 American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives later, the press is "coming to Jesus". Well, better later than never.

Jeanne Fischer
Rocklin, Calif.

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Check Your FAS-FAX

Re: New FAS-FAX Report Brings More Circ Declines

E&P's Nov. 7 story ?New FAS-FAX Report Brings More Circ Declines?, although certainly appropriate in focusing on a rather nasty trend in our business, did a disservice to The Blade. In every case throughout her story, E&P reported circulation statistics of many of the nation's large newspapers using percentages as a comparison to the prior year. That is in every case except when you wrote about The Blade's numbers. ?One of the more surprising and discouraging numbers comes from The Blade in Toledo, Ohio. Despite breaking countless stories related to the state's ?Coingate? fiasco and other political corruption scandals this year, presumably stories of great public interest, the paper took a circ hit. Sunday circulation dropped more than 8,000 to 175,521, while average weekday circulation dropped 6,000 to 133,498.?

The numbers you used are correct but very misleading. What you overlooked was pertinent information in the actual FAS-FAX report that indicates 2,200 daily and 3,200 Sunday lost copies were in the ABC third party category. These copies were intentionally deleted by The Blade to rid ourselves of copies that were not wanted by our advertisers. If percentages were used to make the calculations after deducting the third party copies, they would have shown The Blade down daily by 2.1% and down Sunday by 2.7%, not acceptable but much better than most of the numbers reported in the story.

Further study of the FAS-FAX report would show that while daily home delivery was down, single copy was flat to prior year. This means that when an exceptional ?Coingate? story ran more people purchased The Blade at stores and honor boxes. Home delivery subscribers were getting their copy on the front porch. Other matters that impacted the numbers in the same time period were our decision to eliminate our Sunday TV magazine and introduce a Sunday only single copy increase.

Joe Zerbey
VP/General Manager
The Blade
Toledo, Ohio

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Re: 'LA Times' Cuts Outdoors Section Amid Layoff Rumors

I just noticed your story on the LA Times announcement to cut the outdoors section. I run Reach Advisors, a marketing strategy and research firm that just completed survey work on Generation X media habits, and among the findings is that one of the biggest gaps and opportunities for newspapers involves cracking the code for outdoors coverage.

The study found that for Generation X, outdoor recreation is the #1 recreational activity -- with nothing else anywhere close. This confirms findings from other studies that we've run on Generation X that their outdoor sports participation is far higher than for other generations, and their intensity and passion for outdoor recreation is far deeper, perhaps a hallmark for this generation.

So what does this mean for newspapers? While they might not be able to afford full sections as thorough as the magazine-like coverage of the LA Times, they are cementing the readership decline if they aren't finding a way to address this coverage more effectively for their readers. Right now, it's neglected or haphazard at best. Why? Perhaps in part because outdoors coverage doesn't fit within the organizational structure of a newsroom. It's not really travel, or sports, or lifestyle or news.

We hope that the findings from our forthcoming ?Generation X Media Habits: Exodus or Migration? study help newspapers view strategic decisions as how to regain audiences, rather than which investment banker they need to hire.

James Chung
www.reachadvisors.com

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The Newspaper of (Broken) Record

Judith Miller denies being played for a chump! It should be obvious that Judith Miller reported what was believed to be the truth about W.M.D. The New York Times is backpedaling and blaming Miller. It must be clear to everyone by now that the CIA did the best it could in being accurate in its assessments. Given the dangers involved, if one was to err, it would be on side of caution. One cannot merely dismiss the hindsight armchair quarterbacking that went on after the intelligence failures of 9/11 and how that affected how information was analyzed.

The focus should actually be on what the agenda of the New York Times is. They actively seek out Op-Ed pieces that are only critical of this administration (ask Lawrence Eagleburger!)

Of course, we hear the daily reports on American casualties from Iraq but no mention is made to report similarly on Afghanistan. Consider: Times columnists have had to retract whole columns because they changed the meaning of the president's words 180 degrees. They have misreported on looting of the Iraqi National Museum! They had editorialized ad nauseum that the provisional government took over too early, the elections should be postponed because the Iraqi people weren't ready to vote. Cindy Sheehan is given more space in the Times than any of those other parents who lost a son or daughter in Iraq, many of whom have called for the completion of the mission in Iraq.

The New York Times is no longer the newspaper of record, but the newspaper of broken record. Print anything to undermine the war. In doing so they give the enemies of democracy hope that they can outlast us by detonating more IEDs and with suicidal bombings. Iraqis came out in larger numbers to vote than did Americans. If they aren't intimidated, we should have the courage to see this war through! To do otherwise will only invite more attacks.

H. Michael Sarkisian
Sacramento, Calif.

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More Conservative Voices?

Amazing how all the letters to the editor are from liberals.

Art Laramee
Billerica, Mass.

Ed's Note: Liberals, conservatives, and moderates -- if they still exist these days -- are welcome to contribute to E&P's letters page. Simply e-mail us at letters@editorandpublisher.com.