Gored by Vidal

In comparing Gore Vidal’s article in The Nation and Garry Abrams’ review in your Aug. 4 (“Vidal’s Vitriol Spills on Many in the Nation”) I wondered if your reviewer could possibly have read the same article I did. He peppers his review with buzzwords intended to discredit (vitriol, diatribe, polemic).

The points in the original article are:

--The spectrum of political opinion in the U.S. media is increasingly narrow because a spate of media mergers (most recently Time-Warner) has left 29 corporations owning most of the newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio outlets in this country.

--Corporate control of both major political parties makes them Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and that is why so many people don’t bother to vote. Anyone who asserts the same will be ignored by the corporate media.

--There are specific cases of media executives’ cancelling television shows that many of us would have considered helpful in making political decisions (e.g., a series of hour-long interviews with 1976 presidential candidates that was cancelled, in turn, by PBS and Time-Life-HBO executives.

PATRICIA McFALL

Garden Grove