Friday, August 17, 2007

Letters section today

The Morning News published some anti-toll road letters today in response to Sunday's story, which I think is a shift in their company-line policy. Maybe I started this blog right about the time the News is coming to their senses. We'll see. A nice excerpt from letter writer Michael Boydston:
The Dallas Morning News has behaved disgracefully, shilling for the project on the editorial side while on the news side ignoring or burying stories raising concerns about the project. This story makes a misleading and incorrect case that toll road proponents were straightforward with voters in 1998, in a transparent attempt to subvert the democratic process by suggesting the project should be immune from criticism now.
Over at the Observer, Jim Schutze gives us a peek into how the editorial sausage is made in regards to an editorial on federal dollars being used on Trinity development. (Ed board had said that earmarks were bad, even the ones that come to Dallas for things like fancy bridges over the Trinity.) I recommend reading the whole article, but here's the money quote:

I called Keven Ann Willey, the Morning News editorial page editor, after the second editorial appeared, because I know her a little. She said, "The publisher was out of town, frankly, and had not been aware of our thinking or our intent on this. When the publisher saw the editorial, he wasn't particularly happy with it, shall we say."
The next day the editorial was retracted. This may be par for the course with editorial boards and publishers, but I find it very interesting nonetheless.

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