Jenny Jones

* Re “Jury Orders ‘Jenny Jones’ to Pay $25 Million,” May 8: Jenny Jones has unknowingly defined the twisted morality of trash TV. She is quoted as saying she hasn’t lost faith “in the law and in the people I work with.” Apparently these are her guiding principles as she daily exploits shame and facilitates rage for profit. Anything goes, as long as it isn’t against the law and the people she works with approve.

Jones has revealed a deadly absence of faith in two other essential principles: personal responsibility and human dignity. She and her colleagues (legally) put people in harm’s way for profit. The destruction of two lives is the direct consequence. If she had a shred of integrity, she would have quit her job and begged us all for forgiveness long ago. Her network should pay up without appeal and cancel the show.

JACK ARNOLD

Irvine

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What no one seems to be commenting on in the jury decision in the “Jenny Jones” case is the underlying assumption that if a gay man tells you that he’s attracted to you, you’re justified in killing him. How different would the public reactions have been if the overweight woman had been the one with the “secret crush” on Jonathan Schmitz and he had felt so “humiliated” that he shot her two days later? Would the blame still be so easily placed on the “Jenny Jones” show producers?

Coming so soon after the national hand-wringing over the Matthew Shepard murder, it’s clear that nothing has been learned. It’s still open season on gay men.

RICHARD GOLLANCE

Los Angeles

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It is clear from the Jones and Julie Hiatt Steele verdicts (“Mistrial Is Declared in Steele Case,” May 8) that we don’t have a jury sitting in judgment anymore, we have a focus group. It isn’t what the law says, it’s how they feel about it.

EDWARD LINN

San Diego