Dear Ms. Bennett,
I have just read an article in your newspaper about a process of listing former subscribers and having staff members contact them to find out why they have rejected your newspaper. The article ends with the following, incredible lines:
> It is too early in the dialing process to present any results or plans for future discourse, Mr. Satullo said. But he said that he relished the dialogue with readers, adding that he tried to steer them away from using the terms "bias" and "objectivity."
> "Those terms have been drained of any stable meaning," he said.
Though my principal activity in my career has been practicing law in the US Supreme Court, I have kept my hand in, in journalism for 41 years. All told, I've published about three million words, not including legal briefs which, fairly assessed, are not written in English. So there is a basis for what follows:
My conclusions from that coda in your paper to that article are threefold: I trust the quote is accurate, since your reporter is quoting one of your own. Any person who would say such a thing should not be employed by any reputable news outlet. And any news outlet which saw fit to retain the services of such a person should lose its readers, listeners, viewers (as the case ma be) and go out of business.
Since I've had prior correspondence with Mr. Satullo and find him to be as clueless in person as he seems in writing, I have not written to him on this occasion. You may, of course, share this with him.
Although I have written this to you personally, you are welcome to treat this as an ordinary letter to the editor.
I have provided my address in case you choose to respond. I would be interested to know whether you are seriously interested in the pending demise of your newspaper.
Sincerely,
Billybob
Perhaps that letter should go to the owner of the Inquirer.
Ohhhh..... that letter was delicious!! I love your posts.
"I sent the following letter to the Editor of the Inquirer. I'll follow up if there is any response."
Please ping me if so... Not that her posturing was really open-minded willingness to suddenly become journalists, of course....