FLACK CATCHING

Jack Mathews’ “Sweet Smell of ‘Creative Oscar Odds” was an excellent piece of reporting (March 18). And there’s not much of that animal in the soft sections outside The Times’ news pages.

However, Mathews’ article did end with a bit of the old Hollywood puffery on Warren Cowan of Rogers & Cowan. And I do feel that former Rogers & Cowan publicist Beth Herman did a disservice to Hundreds of honest press agents who go out of their way to level with the media, when she states, “If the media is dumb enough to take these stories year after year it’s you guys who are doing the public a disservice.”

KEN KANTOR

Burbank