This morning I picked up my Inquirer and started to read over my morning coffee. This is my paper and I read it every day despite its growing rightward slant. I passed up the article in the Arts and Entertainment section that was discussing the wonderful talent that is Glen Beck, and moved on to the currents section. That is where I found, for the second day in a row, a response to the letter writing campaign recently innitiated by Dkos readers, regarding the Inquirers hiring of John Yoo.
The previous day, the Inquirer had done what I thought was a fair job, in publishing a handful of letters challenging the wisdom of hiring Yoo as a columnist. Most were against the idea and 1 was for it. I give the Inquirer credit for even publishing these letters and taking the hit. Here is how the Inquirer opened the debate.
Letters to the Editor John Yoo
Numerous letters were received this week after a blogger incorrectly reported that The Inquirer had recently hired former Justice Department official John Yoo, one author of memos justifying the Bush administration's use of torture to interrogate terror suspects. Actually, Yoo's monthly freelance column began last October. But here are some of the comments:
And here are some of the letters:
While I think you are wrong in providing John Yoo with a forum for presenting his ideas, that is your decision and not mine.
On the other hand, I believe that if you are the one providing the vehicle, you have a certain responsibility to make sure that facts are presented and lies are expunged, to the best of your abilities.
Yoo is a known liar and therefore requires closer watching than most of those expressing opinions.
I shouldn't even dignify Will Bunch's "Attytood" blog regarding your relationship with John Yoo with a response, but I want you to know that I fully support your efforts to provide a forum to a diverse set of views ("Inquirer defends the indefensible," philly.com, Monday).
I do not necessarily agree with Yoo's views regarding torture; however, unlike Bunch, I do not want to stifle the voices of those with whom I do not agree. If Bunch's fear is that we will blindly follow the opinions of those whom we read, this approach provides a better alternative to formulating our own views than stifling our opponents' views.
I just read with deep disappointment about your contracting with John Yoo as an op-ed columnist. I have put up with your hiring Rick Santorum. But John Woo is making me want to cancel my subscription.
I subscribed to The Inquirer for 18 years and now, since moving to Memphis, read it daily on the Internet. I am greatly disturbed by your decision to hire John Yoo as a columnist. His participation in manufacturing a legal justification for torture is well-known to you.
Our country is only now beginning to come to grips with the fact that under duress, we sacrificed our fundamental values. Providing a megaphone to this war criminal is unconscionable.
There are more.
I was fairly happy with this response, even though it was couched in the 'bloggers don't know the facts' meme.
Today, apparently still feeling some heat, The Inquirer busted out Harold Jackson to further calm the storm.
Paris. Yes, the one in France.
That's the farthest point from which The Inquirer received e-mails protesting our contract with John Yoo to write a monthly column, which mostly centers on legal topics.
The hundreds of e-mails received are a testament to the power of the blogosphere, and of its superiority to newspapers in getting the word out about, well, about anything.
But I'll save my whining about the murky future of my preferred vehicle of employment for a later date.
Obviously, people would prefer that I talk about Yoo, the former Bush Justice Department official who penned memos legitimizing torture of terror suspects.
Unfortunately, most of the critics of our contract with Yoo have their facts wrong.
See that? Us crazy bloggers, we have our facts wrong. I read the letters and I didn't see any factual errors in them. I continued reading, looking forward to Harold Jackson explaining to us, what these factual errors were.
But that happens when your information comes from those bloggers who never let the facts get in the way when they're trying to whip people into a frenzy to boost Web site hits.
In one sentence, the author loudly proclaims for all to see that he does not know anything about bloggers or Daily Kos. Our letter campaign to the Inquirer was done to boost web hits? Really? Harold Jackson never mentions Daily Kos by name but I am sure he knows the source of these letters. I wonder if he never mentions the name of the evil blog he is discussing because he does not want the Inquirers massive circulation to add to our desperately needed web traffic. Clueless.
I'm done sifting through the snide anti-blogging screed, and I am hoping to get to the substance of the matter before my 'frenzy' wears off so I continue to read.
The decision to publish Yoo monthly came at the suggestion of The Inquirer's publisher, Brian Tierney, who cited Yoo's mutual roots in Philadelphia as well as his legal scholarship. He's a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
I had misgivings, but believed our readers would place the move in context with the paper's clearly expressed criticism in numerous editorials of the Bush administration's use of torture.
I was wrong. From the beginning, we received letters and e-mails criticizing the hiring of Yoo. The criticism increased after his torture memos became public.
At our urging, Yoo wrote a column explaining his reasoning in writing the memos. That piece allowed our readers to hear him out, and respond with their own thoughts about torture. It was exactly what you want to see newspaper opinion pages do - provide the catalyst for intelligent discourse.
Allowing Yoo to have his say has not changed our Editorial Board's opinion that torture can never be justified. In each editorial that mentions the torture memos, we note that Yoo wrote some of them, and that he writes for The Inquirer.
Yoo has written on other subjects in which he and The Inquirer are in disagreement, including affirmative action (he's opposed to it in most cases) and what qualities the next Supreme Court justice should possess.
In the last two years, The Inquirer has consciously added other conservative voices to our daily op-ed page and Sunday opinion section to counter criticism that our editorials and columns always lean left.
Adding more conservative commentaries to our mix doesn't mean we have become right-wing in our editorial positions.
Before he closes the article, he makes sure to aim one more misguided jab at the crazy bloggers.
Whatever happens to Yoo, I hope to have his reaction in a column written exclusively for The Inquirer. Then, our readers will get their turn to respond to what he has to say.
That's what newspaper opinion pages do well.
When newspapers stop being a vehicle for thoughtful conversation, and instead provide an arena for one crowd to pummel the other crowd, without listening to what anyone else has to say, then papers might as well be the blogosphere - or talk radio.
I commend everyone who wrote letter to the Inquirer and I am glad this debate is now getting some attention. I hope it ends with the Inquirer letting Yoo go before they have to defend using him while he is being charged with war crimes.
E-mail Inquirer editorial page editor Harold Jackson at hjackson@phillynews.com.
Submissions to the main letters section may be e-mailed to Inquirer.Letters@phillynews.com; mailed to Readers Editor, The Inquirer, Box 41705, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101; or faxed to 215-854-4483. Questions? Call 215-854-5801.
Contact us: 215-854-4531
Editor of the Editorial Page Harold Jackson - Tel. - 2555
Deputy Editor of the Editorial Page Paul Davies - 5067
Commentary Page editor Josh Gohlke - 5238
John Yoo (jyoo@law.berkeley.edu)