NY Times (??)

When the Readers Speak Out, Can Anyone Hear Them?

New York Times, Sunday 2/20/2005

Daniel Okrent; The Public Editor addresses the above question:

* He says, The Times needs to find an alternative ending for this depressing tune. Certainly the numbers are impossible. The letters department receives 1,000 messages every day, and publishes 15. Beyond that, many of the paper's readers find certain practices and policies regarding letters either dumbfounding or objectionable. Chief among these is the paper’s general hesitance to publish letters that make accusations against The Times, criticize writers or editors, or otherwise call into question the newspaper’s fairness, news judgment or professional practices.

Maureen Dowd; Attacks Harvard Board and President in her OpEd.

** She says, “Whatever point he was trying to make, he ended up making this one: It’s not female aptitude that’s the problem, it’s male attitude. He confuses the roles society assigns to women with what women might really want. The “different socialization” Dr. Summers talks about may be getting worse, thanks to goofballs like him. How did he get to be head of Harvard anyway?

Calls for a letter to the editor, right?

*** Fine! But if you are ingenuous enough to believe that if you say, 1) her critique in this paragraph is undecipherable, intellectual drivel, 2) that the gratuitously offensive, ad hominem attacks she makes on Dr. Summers (and the Harvard Board that appointed him) would be more appropriate on a supermarket tabloid, then don't expect your letter to get more than one millimeter past that sucking black hole on the editor's desk.