how common is it for newspaper editors to insert "balancing views" into a LETTER?

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There's a link but it requires registration. Anyway, I can't recall seeing this "move" before.

Knoxville News Sentinel
April 4, 2004

Women in Black demands peace

On March 16, Knoxville Area Women in Black joined in a national day of
mourning for the death of Rachel Corrie.

Rachel, a 23-year-old American citizen, was killed by an Israeli soldier with
a bulldozer while she stood — unarmed, visible in her orange fluorescent
jacket — protecting a Palestinian home from demolition by the Israeli army.

(The Israeli army said Corrie was hit by a concrete slab that slid down a
mound of earth and that the bulldozer driver did not see her. — The Editor.)

Home demolition, a common practice of the Army's collective punishment, has
left more than 12,000 Palestinians homeless since September 2000 in violation
of international law.

The U.S.-made bulldozer was sent to Israel as part of the regular U.S. aid
package. Use of military aid to destroy civilian homes is illegal. Neither the
FBI nor any other U.S.-led team has investigated Corrie's death.

Women in Black is an international movement started by Israeli women in 1988
to protest Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and
demanding peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In Knoxville, we have
held weekly vigils since April 2, 2002.

CAROL S. NICKLE
Knoxville

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 18 April 2004 10:17 (twenty-two years ago)

That is a bit weird. Call him and ask why, and then give him hell (and get paid for doing it) in a rival paper. Is there a rival paper in Knoxville?

― suzy (suzy), Sunday, 18 April 2004 10:25 (twenty-two years ago)

No. There used to be the Knoxville Journal, but they folded.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 18 April 2004 10:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Why did I know this had to be a letter about Israel in an American newspaper?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 18 April 2004 10:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know. I didn't know. Maybe you are PSYCHIC?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 18 April 2004 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Just as a general point, the insertion of editorial comment into a letter is a bit odd, and not something I recall ever seeing in a newspaper.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 18 April 2004 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

how is the national gagging order (with 'anti-semite' and 'hitler' batiked onto the fabric) going?

where does the zionist-critical discourse exist in the US?

― non-u, Sunday, 18 April 2004 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

not common at all, unless you dare to question Israel's actions!

― D, Sunday, 18 April 2004 23:13 (twenty-two years ago)

But if the tables were turned, and someone had written a letter to the editor that drastically differed from what I believed to be the facts, I'd want some kind of acknowledgement of that.

So I don't think there's anything on principle that's wrong with this. The News-Sentinel's editor runs into trouble if you compare this with other letters he's let through unscathed, with equally - or more - controversial versions of events in them.

Confronting the editor with this kind of double-standard would take far closer reading of the News-Sentinel than I'm accustomed to, or frankly would have any desire for. I suspect even Knoxvilians might feel the same.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 19 April 2004 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

they shoulda put it at the end

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 19 April 2004 00:46 (twenty-two years ago)

s1ocki OTM.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 19 April 2004 00:47 (twenty-two years ago)

mmm I have seen a note at the foot of a letter with either the editor or another writer correcting an error of fact several times but never one in the text

― isadora (isadora), Monday, 19 April 2004 01:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, s locki otm.
By my understanding, a publication is liable for everything that it prints, be it a reader's letter or actual news article, so by putting that amendment in there, they cover their ass. Otherwise their most likely option would have been to not run the contentious letter at all, and often it's what DOESN'T run that's the scariest.

― Huck, Monday, 19 April 2004 05:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Newspapers aren't responsible for the factual content of letters to the editor as far as I'm aware.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 19 April 2004 05:45 (twenty-two years ago)

huck otm - the altweakly in town here got hit with a libel suit over stuff that was in a letter to the editor

― cinniblount (James Blount), Monday, 19 April 2004 05:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, if the addition was unacceptable to the writer of the letter, surely she will contact the paper?

This is the first I've heard about a concrete slab; wasn't her death recorded on videotape?

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 19 April 2004 06:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I've seen it where a sentance is added in the middle to explain which news story was being referred to, only as far as describing in terms that the letter writer would not disagree with.

In this situation, no clarification would have been needed, as the incident was so described already.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 19 April 2004 09:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not sure it's unusual for an editor to say what the 'official line' is on a story.

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 19 April 2004 09:36 (twenty-two years ago)

See, now I'm confident that if Carol (who is a friend of mine, and who has written to complain, and demanded a meeting with the editor, etc) had just written an opinionated harangue that referenced no facts at all, it might have gotten in unscathed.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 19 April 2004 10:22 (twenty-two years ago)

indeed. opinion is opinion, whereas facts are facts. it would be wrong for an editor to balance an opinion, but it's alright for them to balance disputed facts...

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 19 April 2004 10:30 (twenty-two years ago)

who gets their news from the letter page anyways? does the editor fear that publishing the letter unedited will turn the population of knoxville into human shields?

― Sym (shmuel), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Rachel, a 23-year-old American citizen, was killed by an Israeli soldier with a bulldozer while she stood — unarmed, visible in her orange fluorescent jacket — protecting a Palestinian home from demolition by the Israeli army.

(The Israeli army said Corrie was hit by a concrete slab that slid down a mound of earth and that the bulldozer driver did not see her. — The Editor

But what exactly is the editor disputing here? It sounds to me as if the Israeli army has confirmed the story, except that they call the soldier a bulldozer driver. The only difference, then, is that the letter presumes that the soldier saw Rachel and the Israeli army say that he didn't.

― run it off (run it off), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:12 (twenty-two years ago)

that's a significant difference

― Sym (shmuel), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:15 (twenty-two years ago)

not significant enough for an editor to push it, though

― run it off (run it off), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

No - it's only as significant as the difference between an accident and murder. that's a pretty big difference.

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd say it's better for an editor to put something in that to take something out.

― don (don), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:30 (twenty-two years ago)

*THAN to take something out

― don (don), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:31 (twenty-two years ago)

does it matter if the soldier in the bulldozer didn't see Rachel? Surely, he wasn't acting alone. There must have been others, perhaps even those in command, who were watching out for resistance and so forth, to protect the bulldozer driver? When the Israeli army tell us the bulldozer driver didn't see the American in the orange fluorescent
jacket they do not actually tell us that this wasn't an act of murder.

― run it off (run it off), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I really hope it's just a dumb, overcautious provincial editor in action and nothing more sinister.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

yes but that's getting into an argument surrounding what happened rather than the ethics of balancing statements in newspapers. I agree with you: israel probably did murder this woman, but i also think than in a newspaper letter one should allow that if one uses disputed facts, one should expect than one's fact will be disputed. The interjection in this letter cuts both ways: it emphasised for me the corruption of the Israeli Government rather than their innocence...

Xpost

― Robbie Lumsden (Wallace Stevens HQ), Monday, 19 April 2004 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

people write contentious letters into newspapers all the time. If your facts are going to be disputed, you expect that to come from other letters, not from the editor. This isn't an argument about whether facts should be disputed. It's about whether an editor should do it in the middle of a letter. IMO an editor should at least wait until someone has finished before disputing what they've said.

― run it off (run it off), Monday, 19 April 2004 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Tracer, your friend should complain to the conglomerate who owns the paper ie. Knight-Ridder or whomever.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 19 April 2004 12:08 (twenty-two years ago)

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