Um, No

Dear Mr. Ryerson,

I read your March 18th Doonesbury commentary with some interest.

Oh, not about Doonesbury. But instead, I focused on the absurdity of your other comments. Having isolated and occasional liberal voices such as Dan Carpenter in a paper otherwise awash with extreme right wing rhetoric is hardly providing a space for a rich conversation. Take for instance Micah Clark's hate speech disguised as "argument" given such prominent ink and real estate in your paper. My heart goes out to the IYG kids who read that moronic nonsense smearing their organization and felt their own hearts deflate.

Here's an exercise you can do that might disabuse you of your delusions of balance. Take a paper on any given day. It doesn't matter what day, really, as your paper is consistent enough. Take a blank page and divide it into two columns. Label one side left and one side right. Start filling up those columns with names of editorial writers you deem Conservative and those you deem Liberal. See what you come up with.

And that's not even giving sway to actual word counts and layouts, which provide emphases of their own.

Don't think that such things go unnoticed.

As Reverend Al Sharpton might say on PoliticsNation, "We got you, Mr. Ryerson."

John D Fox
http://outsidethefox.blogspot.com