Media Scrutiny

I would cavil at Bruce Schimmel's dismissal of the Welcomat, where I was a weekly columnist for 10 years, as a mere "community" newspaper [Loose Canon, "25 Years of Trash," Jan. 5]. We sure felt we were being an alternative paper, and the controversies we got embroiled in would seem to confirm that belief. No matter, the City Paper is one of Philly's brightest assets and thanks to the Internet, I can follow its weekly wisdom from afar.

Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany

Schimmel might be interested to know that during his struggling years, when the Welcomat was three or four times the City Paper's size, our two top executives were both silently rooting for him to succeed. I detested monopolies and certainly didn't want to work for one myself, [and our] late publisher, Susan Seiderman, astutely perceived that the City Paper's continued presence effectively discouraged the national alternative chains from invading Philadelphia and eating our lunch.

Dan Rottenberg
Editor, Welcomat; 1981-93

I am not surprised that City Paper and Columbia Journalism Review have turned their attention to Mario Cattabiani and John Grogan [Loose Canon, "Now What?" Dec. 29, 2005]. The two Inquirer writers did terrific work in 2005, spotlighting an unusually steep pay raise state legislators voted for themselves, putting it in context and chronicling voter outrage. Their sustained coverage was a factor when lawmakers took an unusual step four months later and rescinded the raise.

I am surprised that both publications, instead, questioned our coverage of the online musings of a state representative, Daylin Leach. It's worth reading what we actually printed. First, the publications suggest there was a "breach of ethics" when the Inquirer wrote critically about a politician after [he] poked fun at one of our writers. If journalists embraced that reasoning, we would quickly find that every public figure was off-limits. Any official who hasn't already joked about a newspaper would start, and the newspapers would then avoid reporting about those officials. That's not the Inquirer's reasoning, and it isn't reasoning our readers want us to follow.

Second, [you] suggest that we failed to point out that Leach took jabs at our reporter. Let's read the first story by Mario: "His last posting chided the media for sending reporters to Seattle to cover legislators, including himself, as they attended the nation's largest convention for lawmakers last month. It mentions that a reporter, whom it calls 'Mario,' would attend, and that knowing that they would be watched, lawmakers were given rules to stay out of trouble." We didn't hide the fact that our reporter was a target [and] were open with our readers from the start.

Let's also examine what these publications call "political satire," pausing for a moment on a passage Leach wrote about traveling to Italy: "I've just learned the very basic things you would need to get by in Rome. I can say 'Hello,' 'Goodbye,' … 'Is your sister really twelve?'" When a state lawmaker uses a Web site to post his views about sex with minors, the Inquirer will continue to consider that news.

Carl H. Lavin
Deputy Managing Editor, News; Philadelphia Inquirer

Correction
The photograph accompanying [News, "The 88-Year-Old Apprentice," Dec. 29, 2005] was taken by Michael Koehler.