Author: Letter to the editor

Letter to the editor: On “Progress of the Beacon/KWMU merger”

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Dear editor, I urge you to make Terry Ganey’s story from last fall about the Beacon/Public Radio available online. Few people in daily journalism, current or former, have seen it. (The two Post-Dispatch staff members who are quoted in the story aren’t aware of its publication.) Plus, it’s odd not to publish online a story about an online publication. I’d also suggest that you expand on the passage about the Beacon’s, and Public Radio’s, extraordinary interest in chess.

Greenwald’s Pulitzer deserves second thoughts

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The Pulitzer and Polk committees had little choice, as most commentators say. They felt that they had to give their 2013 prizes for public service to the publications and reporters who broke one of the biggest stories of the year, the broad surveillance operations of the National Security Agency. But their decisions deserve second thoughts. Consequences figure in the committees’ thinking, and the disclosures have brought beneficial consequences by most estimates. President Obama has reacted by ordering a restructuring of the surveillance systems to limit reported abuses. And the press and public have learned much about what the U.S. government has been doing in secret. But some other consequences have been clearly harmful. Among them is the outrage in Germany, a prime ally and trading partner of the United States, over the N.S.A.’s gathering of electronic data from its ordinary citizens and spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel. She said angrily that “snooping among friends, that just doesn’t work.”

Letter to the editor from Post-Dispatch takes issue with recent GJR article

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Dear Mr. Babcock: We had trusted that the Gateway Journalism Review’s recent article, “Social Media Campaign by former P-D writer alleges P-D mistakes in series about mistakes” (Winter 2014), by publisher Bill Freivogel would finally offer a fairer and more complete assessment of our “Jailed by Mistake” project than your previous online efforts. Instead, we unfortunately found a disappointing lack of critical thinking, balance and independent reporting. The most disturbing failures of the article were its absence of analysis, its lopsided “he said, she said,” nature of reporting and its author’s willingness to accept without question assertions and spin by the very public officials who oversee operations that mistakenly put innocent people in jail. They are not neutral observers.

Circuit attorney responds to Post-Dispatch’s letter to the editor of GJR

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I am writing to offer my thoughts in response to the letter you recently received from the [St. Louis] Post-Dispatch regarding your publication’s analysis relating to the Post-Dispatch’s “Jailed by Mistake” articles. I believe Mr. Freivogel worked diligently to capture the perspectives of this complex situation in the Gateway Journalism Review (GJR). I am troubled by the response of the Post-Dispatch editors to this piece as it seems to be based on some substantial inaccuracies. My position regarding the items included in the March 7, 2014, letter sent to the GJR by Messrs. Gilbert Bailon and Adam Goodman of the Post-Dispatch have been well documented over the past several months with both the Post-Dispatch directly and with the GJR.

Roth’s letter to readers: Decide for yourselves

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Joseph Pulitzer uttered three words that occupy an even more exalted place in the ideals of the working journalist than the poetry of his Platform: “Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy,” he said. The prize that bears Mr. Pulitzer’s name embeds in its rules another pre-eminent value of professional journalism: fairness. The Post-Dispatch has fallen woefully short of these standards. Its editors approved publication of reports that are grossly unfair, that are full of errors and that fundamentally misrepresent the system of criminal suspect identification in St. Louis.