Dude Wants To Hear From You

An interview with Frank Blethen, the publisher of the Seattle Times, is the cover feature in this week's Seattle Weekly. In it, Blethen repeatedly blah blahs about the value of "independent journalism" and "watchdog journalism", and boasts about having angered many of the region's largest and most influential business.

At the same time, Blethen submitted a full-page letter "to our readers" in yesterday's Times, with lots more blah blah. But he also invited readers to "write to us about the content of the newspaper or your service from us."

So let's let him have it. Here's what I'll send:

Mr. Blethen, I'd appreciate it if the paper were more forthcoming with the facts surrounding the planned Iraq invasion. Instead of at most capsule coverage (but usually not even that), for example, of the many reports predicting a humanitarian calamity in Iraq should war occur, why not print the reports in their entirety, or at least give prominent coverage of their findings? Why has the Seattle P-I, for another, run two features concerning Depleted Uranium in the past few months, while the Times hasn't run any? And why did the Times not afford Front page coverage to the story, which broke last week, that the U.S. intends to inflict Hiroshima-like damage upon Baghdad? The plan's creators, after all, are boasting that, "There will be no safe place in Baghdad," and that "you also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water." These are major war crimes the U.S. is planning, and openly so, yet it's not important enough to merit a mention?

If we must read Charles Krauthammer's and Michael Kelly's lunacy each week, why not solicit op-eds from the likes of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Hans von Sponeck, Denis Halliday, Kathy Kelly, Gabriel Kolko? Indeed, why not run Robert Fisk's column? He has, after all, made a career of covering the Arab world, and even speaks the language.

How about more and better coverage of the burgeoning peace movement, whose scope is worldwide, and whose numerous actions before the onset of war are unprecedented in World history? Isn't it worth knowing that 80% or more of the World's population opposes the coming war, with opposition the strongest in the region itself -- that is, among those supposedly the most threatened by Saddam's weapons?

Is there any reason, as we stand on the brink of a war in which tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilians will be killed and a million people driven from their homes, in which Depleted Uranium (or perhaps even non-Depleted Uranium) munitions will be used, and in which the President has authorised the use of nuclear weapons should any "unexpected" battlefield developments arise or should the U.S. need to destroy bunkers buried too deep in the ground for conventional weapons to reach; that Bert Sacks, a Seattleite who has made numerous trips to Iraq, devoted his life to ending the Sanctions Regime, and been levied a $10,000 fine upon by the U.S. government for delivering medicine to Iraq; should not be given a weekly column?

As the shooting is set to begin in less than a month, shouldn't the letters page of the paper be expanded to at least two pages? And shouldn't the editorial page (especially the meagre Sunday Opinion section) be bolstered?

Is it not, in short, in all of our best interests for the public to be as fully informed as possible before the missiles start exploding?

I thank you for this opportunity to share these thoughts with you, and hope that you can implement some of these ideas.

Update! Have received the following heartfelt reply from the Times: "Thank you for your message. We appreciate hearing the views of our readers and your message will be shared with the appropriate people at The Seattle Times."

Posted by Eddie Tews at February 6, 2003 11:12 AM