The Readers Write, Take the Media-- and Me!--to Task

Keep those cards and letters coming.

The latest batch centers mostly on two columns. One asserted (mirthfully) that political conservatives, while publicly opposed to affirmative action, would love to see a quota system imposed on “the liberal media” that would ensure equal hiring of right - wingers. The other argued that “Jenny Jones,” not mass homophobia, is to blame for triggering the killing of a gay man after he had taped an episode of that talk show in which he disclosed his crush on another male guest who now stands charged with the fatal shooting.

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I applaud your tongue-in-cheek admission that most of the major media are “a monolith of bleeding hearts.” However, affirmative action--cute though the idea may be--is not the way to effectively remedy the problem.

Instead of suggesting (that the right wants) an equal number of conservatives to be hired to balance out the number of liberals currently employed by the media, I would rather see your column advocate professional journalism from all practitioners of the trade.

As I recall from my days in school studying the duties and moral obligations of the media, I was told that they are supposed to report a story in a clear and unbiased fashion. Are we now to believe that noble idea has since been lost to personal agendas in the newsroom and political correctness by the editorial staff?

If this is true, then God help us. And shame on you for misplacing your objectivity somewhere along the way.

FRED ROMERO

Simi Valley

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I haven’t stopped laughing yet at the hilarious article regarding the liberal media bias in the United States. The brilliant sarcastic wit of Rosenberg has once again set all of us straight on this issue.

Why, that cute little analogy suggesting parallels between conservative reporters and affirmative action was side-splitting. How does he come up with stuff?

Of course, holding true to his style of “journalism,” Howard’s basis for this analogy instituting quotas in the newsrooms is nothing but a fabrication by him. No Republican politician has suggested this as any kind of alternative.

Conservatives and other thoughtful people would be happy if so-called journalists like Rosenberg would actually practice journalism. That is, a fair and accurate reporting of ideas, news and events. Maybe they could just try being professionals for, say, 30 days and see if they don’t feel a little bit better about themselves.

What am I saying? A reporter feeling good about something positive? Sorry, I lost my head for a minute there.

MARK SCHRADER

Palm Desert

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It seems Rosenberg, and the media in general, “just don’t get it.” He doesn’t see the forest for the trees. In taking the Op-Ed piece by Robin Kane of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to task for suggesting that it was “rampant homophobia,” and not the talk show “Jenny Jones” that was responsible for the murder of Scott Amedure, he dismisses the fact that a murder was committed because someone felt “humiliated.”

I guess the “humiliation” of being found attractive by someone is reason to kill. What about the hundreds of other humiliations meted out on talk shows that don’t result in death? Rosenberg states at the end of his piece that (the essence of Kane’s) “argument is that the accused (Jonathan) Schmitz is a typical homophobe, as if fear and hatred of gays were manifested mainly in acts of violence, in contrast to the many institutional and also subtler ways that they are discriminated against in this society.”

He has it half right. What he misses is his own “subtle” way of accepting that being found attractive by a member of the same sex is so devastating and humiliating that one could kill. What if these two people were in a restaurant or at a party and one expressed the same sentiments and was killed for it? You wouldn’t have the talk show to blame. What if he used the usual gay-bashing methods: baseball bat, bricks, knives? Who would be to blame then?

Rosenberg has confused the carrier of a message and the message, and is guilty of the very discrimination he decries. He . . . seems to feel what’s most important to talk about is that “talk shows have gone too far.” Well, what’s gone too far are the excuses being made for Schmitz. What’s gone too far is the pervasive acceptance of homosexuality being so repugnant and those who, by default, are excusing Schmitz’s actions by blaming a talk show.

STEVE COHEN

Los Angeles

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Talk-show hosts, producers, networks and whoever try to shirk a greater truth, one that is, in analysis, criminal. They can try to excuse themselves that they did not actually give Schmitz or any other person the “gun” . . . to commit physical or verbal-type violence to lover, family or casual individual. However, these TV consortiums did and do supply the bullets.

They are responsible. Avoiding that responsibility has no validity whatsoever.

CHARLES DAVIS SMITH

Monrovia

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As another example of the double standard that exists to benefit cable, I point to your piece about “The Jewel in the Crown” running on Bravo. “The Jewel in the Crown” ran stripped in prime time on KCOP in September of 1988. We were the first and then the only station in the country to run “The Jewel in the Crown” and “Brideshead Revisited” after their PBS run. We averaged about 250,000 households each night, about 10 times what Bravo will do. I don’t remember the same support for us!

RICK FELDMAN

vice president and

general manager, KCOP

It’s never too late. Kudos to KCOP for running “The Jewel in the Crown” in 1988.