Normally, we don’t have much to say about the letters that appear in the Chronicle. However, it does occasionally raise an eyebrow when the newspaper decides to publish letters with inaccurate facts or dubious assertions, as we’ve pointed out before.
On Wednesday, a blogHOUSTON reader called my attention to one such letter that appeared in the newspaper. Here is the text:
Why Dems left party
Phil Beeson’s Feb. 14 letter, “It won’t be Dean’s personality,” pointed out that in the 1960s many Democrats abandoned the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party did some repositioning of itself. But this shift had nothing to do with socialism or overtaxation.I have found that those who shifted parties agree with Democratic programs such as Social Security and Medicare. They also agree with the Democratic Party’s environmental policies.
However, they also find the Democratic Party to be associated with and supportive of racial and ethnic minorities. This sole issue drove them out of the party. The Republican Party has used these prejudices to dominate politics in the South.
RICHARD MANNING
Houston
As I read that letter, Mr. Manning is asserting that the SOLE ISSUE that explains Republican ascendance in the South is that the party is racist and has exploited racial prejudice in the South. Of course, I was curious as to why a responsible newspaper would choose to print such a dubious assertion, so I emailed the reader representative and Judy Minshew, the letters editor, the following on Wednesday afternoon (I attached the letter in question, which I am omitting here):
Greetings,
I found the following letter (bottom) printed in the Chronicle letters section today.
Generally, I don’t pay much attention to letters selected for that section, as I assume the editors are doing their best to represent a diversity of views, and I would say there is some discretion in what is printed.
Still, I was surprised to find a letter that basically asserts that Republican ascendance in the South is solely because that party has played on people’s racial prejudices. That may be one factor in Republican ascendance in the South over time, but I would contend that issues such as economics not to mention guns and culture (religion!) figure prominently, and I make that contention as a trained political scientist.
It seems to me, therefore, that the letter makes a pretty charged racial statement, and one that isn’t verifiably accurate.
Let me flip it around and ask this. If I were to write a letter suggesting that the SOLE reason the Democrats are faring so poorly in the South is because they support redistributionist and affirmative action polices that amount to racial discrimination against whites, wouldn’t someone flag that letter?
I’m asking that in all honesty — would that letter potentially be selected for publication?
I wouldn’t think so, but I’m trying to figure out why its converse, in the form of today’s letter, would.
Thanks,
Kevin Whited
The reader representative responded that he would ask Judy Minshew and David Langworthy for their response to my question. To Miss Minshew’s credit, she did respond at the end of the business day on Wednesday. To her discredit, she effectively sent me a form letter that answered a question I had not asked. Here is her email:
Thanks for writing. All of the letters I receive are considered, and personal opinion has very little to do with the selection. I look for a variety of topics, of points of view and short and concise letters are the easiest to get selected! We have an informal 90-day waiting period between letters getting published, so I also check the recent columns for name duplications. It’s kind of like when I used to be in the banking business, and we were told to maintain a 2% loan failure rate by writing plenty of loans. With the letters, the more I have to select from, the better the published column will be. Thanks again for asking.
I emailed Miss Minshew back shortly after receiving this email on Wednesday thanking her for her response, but pointing out that she had not actually answered my question about this specific letter and the newspaper’s policy on printing letters with dubious, racially charged assertions. I restated that question and politely asked for an answer. I have heard no further about my question from her, David Langworthy, or the reader representative.
So, I’m left to conclude that the only policy that guides the letters editor at the Chronicle regarding the printing of letters with dubious, racially charged assertions is her experience in the banking business.
My own opinion of the letters page is that for all but the most elite newspapers (the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and a handful of others) that can employ editors intellectually equipped to ensure that it is actually a lively, intelligent forum for debate, the letters page should probably be abolished in favor of technology that can better facilitate community debate and discussion (such as online message boards, trackback and the like), thereby freeing newspaper space for additional substantive columns. I suspect the newspaper of the future will look somewhat more like weblogs that allow discussion and trackback, and will look somewhat less like current newspapers and websites that attempt to cherrypick the “best” letters for publication according to some criteria (experience in the banking industry? practices of talk radio?) known only by the person making the selections.
