Message to Media: Duck and Cover the News

Re “Media Under Public Barrage Over Content of War Coverage,” Nov. 18: In his condescending little lecture on why the great unwashed aren’t sophisticated enough to understand the hallowed precepts by which the press operates, David Shaw tips his hand.

The job of journalists, he tells us, is to “evaluate the judgment and policies of the president and his top advisors” and to “lobby” for worthwhile things. Odd. Some of us philistines were under the impression the job of reporters was to get the facts and leave the evaluating and lobbying to editorial page writers and the Trial Lawyers Assn.

By trotting out the usual hoary cliches about shoot-the-messenger syndrome, you delude yourself as to why the country has such distaste for the sleaze that’s passed off as high-minded journalism these days. It’s because reporters, with their analyzing and lobbying, have gotten, to use a phrase favored by us hicks, “too big for their britches.”

David Browning

Studio City

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Your report on the survey of the public’s appraisal of the media’s coverage of the war in Afghanistan enraged me. It is illustrative of the individual American’s famous propensity for denial when it comes to the government’s less savory overseas activities. In a society with a free press, the media are duty-bound to cover this war, warts and all. And like it or not, Americans are equally duty-bound to know what is being done in their name on the other side of the world. Whether you believe this is a just war or not, as most Americans do, that responsibility includes understanding that innocent people are being killed in this conflict.

Would these same people criticize the media for reporting on the holes in airline security? Is that providing useful information to would-be terrorists and putting the nation at further risk? I think not.

Steve Davy

Los Angeles