Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

AN OPEN LETTER TO TWO DIMWITS:



Ron Varrial
Editor
Eric Mayberry
Publisher
Metro Philadelphia
30 S. 15th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102

Dear Messrs. Varrial and Mayberry:

It is bad enough having you news hacks tell me how to think. Worse is when you tell me what to buy. It is not enough that this blazing insult to my intelligence carries a hed bigger than anything you've run in the last few years, nor that it takes up more space than many newsworthy stories. No, this is worse: an ad masquerading as a story. Such fraudulence is why you hacks are held in lower regard than used-car salesmen. You may think being distributed gratis clears you from having to act responsibly, but it doesn't. Nor can you excuse the buffoonery by the fact you run wire copy and three interns. And when the damned fools at the Tower of Babble on North Broad run their sectional-front ads they have the alibi of being paid. Advertising as "news" reeks like a free whorehouse.

And those of us who step on your rag going to work don't even have the luxury of boycotting you. You've become like city hall, something we can't fight. At the very least realize many of those who read your used Bounty read nothing else, and they deserve better -- even if you don't.

Yours,
[Eugene David]

(Our hero appears in a small corner of Metro New York, which is unobjectionable -- but then a big stock market drop may have concentrated its "editors'" minds wonderfully.)