Salon | Letters to the editor

CORRECTION:
A review last week of Victoria Gotti's new novel, "I'll Be Watching You," mistakenly criticized the book for containing sloppy grammar and punctuation. Our critic was working from an advance copy of the novel; the grammar and punctuation blunders were corrected in later editions of Gotti's book. Salon apologizes for the error.

_______________ THERE THEY GO AGAIN BY DAVID TALBOT (06/19/98)

Thank you for your pointed coverage of the current political scene. I am a relative newcomer to the Internet, and your magazine is one of the more pleasant surprises I have found here.
I speak as a 55-year-old Recovering Republican who has watched with horror at the moral disintegration of the party of my father and grandfather. I have the viewpoint that the popular media has at least enabled this destruction by blindly following the most absurd allegations of the party's right wing. The Starr investigation is the most prominent example.
There has been a wealth of unsupported allegation and a dearth of substantive proof of wrongdoing through all of this. I regret to say that the senatorial delegation of my home state (North Carolina) seems to have played its part in what has become a sick parody of the democratic process.
I both applaud you and urge you to continue your efforts. The right-wing case so far as shown would not stand up in a small-town traffic court.
-- John Alger
Swannanoa, N.C.
What fascinates me about the Wall Street Journal's attacks on Salon is how similar in tone they are to Kenneth Starr's 19-page, single-spaced response to Steven Brill -- full of righteous indignation, but silent on the factual issues raised in Salon's and Content's coverage of the so-called Clinton scandals and the conduct of the news media. Methinks they doth protest too much. The well-deserved discomfort they are perhaps feeling is nothing compared to the torment they have inflicted on the Clintons, and on us, for the last five (five!) years. If the pinpricks, and that is all they are, that Salon and Content have managed to land cause them to squeal this loudly, one can only wonder what their reactions may be to further revelations.
Your question about the WSJ being hijacked by the nutcase right is valid, but here's another one: What is it about Clinton that arouses such vindictive animosity, on both the right and the left? As bad as the Scaife-funded smears have been, I have heard the same, and worse, from people I know who style themselves liberals or leftists. The news media, in covering high-profile murder cases, show more respect for the rights of the accused than they do in their coverage of Clinton. He, it seems, is to be presumed guilty, whatever the evidence. "We know," says someone of my acquaintance, "that he's a fondler." Uh, no, actually we don't know anything of the kind, but why let that get in the way of some juicy gossip?
If gossip and innuendo are to take the place of law, reason, justice, then he or she who gets into print or on the Net with the most outrageous or slanderous statement becomes our de facto leader. Do we really want to be governed this way? I think that's a question we had all better answer, and sooner rather than later.
-- Ann Davidson
Philadelphia
David Talbot's editorial is excellent. Talbot did the American public a great service by exposing [the Journal's] hypocrisy and the right-wing wackos associated with it. Like all whining bullies, those arrogant, disgusting clowns can dish it out but can't take it.
Keep up the good work and your outstanding professionalism. It is wonderful to have unbiased reporting.
-- Mary Dreksler
Satellite Beach, Fla.
I was once one of those slightly to the right of the Marxist college students who tried the connect-the-dots strategy in my first job with the YMCA when I was looking at its board of directors. I discovered the same thing. The board was an eclectic ideological mix of rich businessmen, socialites, do-gooders and symbolic constituents. None were serving to make money; some were serving for prestige, some to make a genuinely better community and some had no idea why the hell they were there. I came to the realization that none were serving to implement any conspiracy -- real or imagined. Now I am a registered Republican who views much of my party's Clinton vendetta with dismay. Keep after them!
-- Brad Gough
The Wall Street Journal's attack on Salon Magazine prompted me to think about what I had seen on MSNBC this very day. The afternoon program had invited viewers to vote by phone or by e-mail as to whether the news media coverage of the so-called White House Scandal was mostly fact or fiction. The percentage of phone calls was over 60 percent fiction and e-mail over 70 percent fiction.
Many of the call-in viewers voiced their opinion that NBC, CNBC and MSNBC gave a biased view in favor of Ken Starr because it created an ongoing controversy that in turn created higher ratings. This is a view I have held for a long time, and I was pleased to see it confirmed.
The most unpartisan reporting I have found so far has been in Salon Magazine, and attacks on the magazine by partisan publications like the Wall Street Journal only strengthen my conviction. I also believe the reason a publication like yours can remain content independent is because the Internet is not nearly as commercially constrained as other media.
The general population in this country is a lot more sophisticated in its approach to the news media than most of the news media's approach is to them. Maybe someday most news publishers and producers will catch on.
-- Jesus C. Verdugo
Hayward, Calif.
I know it was just a throwaway line, but your editorial about the Wall Street Journal includes a silly bit about "a Marxist study group lead by Noam Chomsky." It bothered me a hair that you guys don't know that Chomsky, far from being a Marxist, has polemicized against Marx for decades. For that matter, in the days when the Soviets still cared about ideology, they devoted much ink and money to attacking Chomsky, whose democratic, anarchical version of socialism was as anathema to them as it is to mainstream American pundits. At least the Reds bothered to figure out what Chomsky thought.
Ignorant sarcasm is just as objectionable as any other sort of stylistic error unless the ignorance itself is part of the joke. As our world fills to the brim with B-school grads, it's quite unnecessary to make your own contribution to the dumbing down of our public discourse.
-- Jim Harrison
San Francisco
_______________ STARR TROOPERS BY JOE CONASON (06/22/98)

I just read Joe Conason's column, and I am starting to feel better, not so alone, less hostile and calmer thanks to Salon (and now Content). I thought that it was a brave new world where the vernacular is unable to include words like "lucid," "integrity," "sanity."
The writings of Salon's contributors and editors have made me realize that the truth can be a shared experience. Not everybody is obsessed with spoon-fed details of patently concocted smears. Not everyone is so consumed with petty hatred of Clinton that they are willing to collude in a conspiracy against sanity.
But that's what my therapist has been telling me for years; it took Salon to make the point lucid. Wouldn't it be cool if eventual evolution weren't so incredibly incremental.
-- Greg Daries
Happy news indeed to have Joe Conason joining your stable of regulars. He's one of the dwindling number of reporters out there whose bullshit detector is still operational. I consider this move just, if still inadequate, compensation for Salon's infliction of Crazy Aunt Paglia and Hi-Dudgeon Horowitz upon us.
-- Susan Sharp
_______________ SALON'S COVERAGE OF THE CLINTON CRISIS (06/23/98 - 01/21/98)

Thanks for the articles by Murray Waas, Jonathan Broder and Joe Conason. I discovered Salon back in January after combing the Internet for some kind of alternative reporting to Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the network sleaze frenzy. I had begun to wonder if there were any independent investigative reporters left!
The major TV and news outlets have been doing nothing but reporting a rumor round and round like a dog chasing its tail. The rumor would then be supposed to be taken as truth by the American public. My only hope is that this country is now media-savvy enough to keep holding the polls on Clinton until we really know what happened and let the media roll on with its corrupted three-ring circus and grotesque sideshows until the audience runs it out of town. (It's not likely, but at least some stricter standards of journalistic behavior need to be put into place if we readers and viewers are to trust any of the information we receive from these outlets in the future.) A little extra praise goes to Geraldo Rivera, for giving more exposure to Salon's reporting, and Howard Kurtz, who has managed to throw light in an objective way on many of the media issues.
-- Susan Burns
SALON | June 25, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| RICH PICKINGS, SOUR GRAPES BY LINDA TISCHLER

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	CORRECTION: A review last week of Victoria Gotti's new novel, "I'll Be Watching You," mistakenly criticized the book for containing sloppy grammar and punctuation. Our critic was working from an advance copy of the novel; the grammar and punctuation blunders were corrected in later editions of Gotti's book. Salon apologizes for the error.
_______________ THERE THEY GO AGAIN BY DAVID TALBOT (06/19/98)
	Thank you for your pointed coverage of the current political scene. I am a relative newcomer to the Internet, and your magazine is one of the more pleasant surprises I have found here. I speak as a 55-year-old Recovering Republican who has watched with horror at the moral disintegration of the party of my father and grandfather. I have the viewpoint that the popular media has at least enabled this destruction by blindly following the most absurd allegations of the party's right wing. The Starr investigation is the most prominent example. There has been a wealth of unsupported allegation and a dearth of substantive proof of wrongdoing through all of this. I regret to say that the senatorial delegation of my home state (North Carolina) seems to have played its part in what has become a sick parody of the democratic process. I both applaud you and urge you to continue your efforts. The right-wing case so far as shown would not stand up in a small-town traffic court. -- John Alger Swannanoa, N.C. What fascinates me about the Wall Street Journal's attacks on Salon is how similar in tone they are to Kenneth Starr's 19-page, single-spaced response to Steven Brill -- full of righteous indignation, but silent on the factual issues raised in Salon's and Content's coverage of the so-called Clinton scandals and the conduct of the news media. Methinks they doth protest too much. The well-deserved discomfort they are perhaps feeling is nothing compared to the torment they have inflicted on the Clintons, and on us, for the last five (five!) years. If the pinpricks, and that is all they are, that Salon and Content have managed to land cause them to squeal this loudly, one can only wonder what their reactions may be to further revelations. Your question about the WSJ being hijacked by the nutcase right is valid, but here's another one: What is it about Clinton that arouses such vindictive animosity, on both the right and the left? As bad as the Scaife-funded smears have been, I have heard the same, and worse, from people I know who style themselves liberals or leftists. The news media, in covering high-profile murder cases, show more respect for the rights of the accused than they do in their coverage of Clinton. He, it seems, is to be presumed guilty, whatever the evidence. "We know," says someone of my acquaintance, "that he's a fondler." Uh, no, actually we don't know anything of the kind, but why let that get in the way of some juicy gossip? If gossip and innuendo are to take the place of law, reason, justice, then he or she who gets into print or on the Net with the most outrageous or slanderous statement becomes our de facto leader. Do we really want to be governed this way? I think that's a question we had all better answer, and sooner rather than later. -- Ann Davidson Philadelphia David Talbot's editorial is excellent. Talbot did the American public a great service by exposing [the Journal's] hypocrisy and the right-wing wackos associated with it. Like all whining bullies, those arrogant, disgusting clowns can dish it out but can't take it. Keep up the good work and your outstanding professionalism. It is wonderful to have unbiased reporting. -- Mary Dreksler Satellite Beach, Fla. I was once one of those slightly to the right of the Marxist college students who tried the connect-the-dots strategy in my first job with the YMCA when I was looking at its board of directors. I discovered the same thing. The board was an eclectic ideological mix of rich businessmen, socialites, do-gooders and symbolic constituents. None were serving to make money; some were serving for prestige, some to make a genuinely better community and some had no idea why the hell they were there. I came to the realization that none were serving to implement any conspiracy -- real or imagined. Now I am a registered Republican who views much of my party's Clinton vendetta with dismay. Keep after them! -- Brad Gough The Wall Street Journal's attack on Salon Magazine prompted me to think about what I had seen on MSNBC this very day. The afternoon program had invited viewers to vote by phone or by e-mail as to whether the news media coverage of the so-called White House Scandal was mostly fact or fiction. The percentage of phone calls was over 60 percent fiction and e-mail over 70 percent fiction. Many of the call-in viewers voiced their opinion that NBC, CNBC and MSNBC gave a biased view in favor of Ken Starr because it created an ongoing controversy that in turn created higher ratings. This is a view I have held for a long time, and I was pleased to see it confirmed. The most unpartisan reporting I have found so far has been in Salon Magazine, and attacks on the magazine by partisan publications like the Wall Street Journal only strengthen my conviction. I also believe the reason a publication like yours can remain content independent is because the Internet is not nearly as commercially constrained as other media. The general population in this country is a lot more sophisticated in its approach to the news media than most of the news media's approach is to them. Maybe someday most news publishers and producers will catch on. -- Jesus C. Verdugo Hayward, Calif. I know it was just a throwaway line, but your editorial about the Wall Street Journal includes a silly bit about "a Marxist study group lead by Noam Chomsky." It bothered me a hair that you guys don't know that Chomsky, far from being a Marxist, has polemicized against Marx for decades. For that matter, in the days when the Soviets still cared about ideology, they devoted much ink and money to attacking Chomsky, whose democratic, anarchical version of socialism was as anathema to them as it is to mainstream American pundits. At least the Reds bothered to figure out what Chomsky thought. Ignorant sarcasm is just as objectionable as any other sort of stylistic error unless the ignorance itself is part of the joke. As our world fills to the brim with B-school grads, it's quite unnecessary to make your own contribution to the dumbing down of our public discourse. -- Jim Harrison San Francisco
_______________ STARR TROOPERS BY JOE CONASON (06/22/98)
	I just read Joe Conason's column, and I am starting to feel better, not so alone, less hostile and calmer thanks to Salon (and now Content). I thought that it was a brave new world where the vernacular is unable to include words like "lucid," "integrity," "sanity." The writings of Salon's contributors and editors have made me realize that the truth can be a shared experience. Not everybody is obsessed with spoon-fed details of patently concocted smears. Not everyone is so consumed with petty hatred of Clinton that they are willing to collude in a conspiracy against sanity. But that's what my therapist has been telling me for years; it took Salon to make the point lucid. Wouldn't it be cool if eventual evolution weren't so incredibly incremental. -- Greg Daries Happy news indeed to have Joe Conason joining your stable of regulars. He's one of the dwindling number of reporters out there whose bullshit detector is still operational. I consider this move just, if still inadequate, compensation for Salon's infliction of Crazy Aunt Paglia and Hi-Dudgeon Horowitz upon us. -- Susan Sharp
_______________ SALON'S COVERAGE OF THE CLINTON CRISIS (06/23/98 - 01/21/98)
	Thanks for the articles by Murray Waas, Jonathan Broder and Joe Conason. I discovered Salon back in January after combing the Internet for some kind of alternative reporting to Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the network sleaze frenzy. I had begun to wonder if there were any independent investigative reporters left! The major TV and news outlets have been doing nothing but reporting a rumor round and round like a dog chasing its tail. The rumor would then be supposed to be taken as truth by the American public. My only hope is that this country is now media-savvy enough to keep holding the polls on Clinton until we really know what happened and let the media roll on with its corrupted three-ring circus and grotesque sideshows until the audience runs it out of town. (It's not likely, but at least some stricter standards of journalistic behavior need to be put into place if we readers and viewers are to trust any of the information we receive from these outlets in the future.) A little extra praise goes to Geraldo Rivera, for giving more exposure to Salon's reporting, and Howard Kurtz, who has managed to throw light in an objective way on many of the media issues. -- Susan Burns SALON \| June 25, 1998