Rambling Rhodes

For Your Consideration. . .

Last week, I submitted a letter to the editor of the Rochester Post-Bulletin regarding the Kerry/Cambodia flap. The following is what transpired:

Thank you for your letter to the editor. However, we do not plan on running
it at this time. You state that Mr. Kerry lied about his military service.
We've been getting many letters like this from anti-Kerry and anti-Bush
people. Much of the material for these letters has come from unreliable Web
sites that are perpetuating inaccurate information. We've decided not to run
them unless the writer provides documentation. To just say something "never
happened" or that someone "lied" without such documentation is unfair.

--
Greg Sellnow
Columnist/Editorial Page Coordinator
Post-Bulletin

I responded:

Thank you for your response, Mr. Sellnow. I respect the P-B's decision not to run my letter. Just out of curiousity, though, what does the Post-Bulletin consider "unreliable" Web sites? I, too, am a journalist, currently working as news editor for several IBM magazines, and I regularly find items on the Web that aid my research on articles. Some Web sites, obviously, are moonbat crazy and I typically ignore them, but there are also a vast number of sites out there that consistently bring stories to light before the established "Media" even get a whiff of them. I've been out of the newspaper game for about five years now, so I'm curious how newspapers newsrooms currently view and utilize the Web.

Ryan Rhodes

Sellnow writes back:

We've been getting more and more letters to the editor from readers containing information that is basically cut and pasted from blogs and personal Web sites. These folks just blindly accept the info. as fact without taking the time to determine if it's accurate. You're right, there's a ton of information out there on the Web that is accurate and reliable. We'd just like letter writers to cite the sources for controversial information so we can check it for accuracy. Obviously, if it's biased source such as MoveOn.org people can take it for what it's worth and we'll print the letter. But if the source is Jim Smith's daily blog we might be a bit more skeptical. In your case, I'm pretty sure the info. you include in your letter about Kerry not being in Cambodia on Christmas Day 1968 comes from a biography of Kerry by Douglas Brinkley called "Tour of Duty." If you can confirm that and list him as the source we'd be fine with the letter.

Greg Sellnow
Columnist/Editorial Page Coordinator
Post-Bulletin

Emphasis mine (of course). Keep in mind, Sellnow and I remained cordial and respectful, but something about his last response bothered me.

Let's see, they draw the line when it comes to people blindly accepting information as fact without taking the time to determine if it's accurate, but if it's a letter that cites a biased source such as MoveOn.org people can take it for what it's worth and they'll print the letter? WTF?

-- Much of the material for these letters has come from unreliable Web
sites that are perpetuating inaccurate information

-- Obviously, if it's biased source such as MoveOn.org people can take it for what it's worth and we'll print the letter.

So, it's okay if it's MoveOn.org bias, but other biased sources (such as blogs) should be backed up with documentation and research for accuracy? That's a pretty screwed up letters policy.

Posted by Ryan at August 16, 2004 03:26 PM